


The walls come crashing down

by crashcrashBURN



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Episode: s07e21 Reading is Fundamental, Episode: s08e02 What's Up Tiger Mommy?, Episode: s08e07 A Little Slice of Kevin, Hand Jobs, Homophobia, M/M, Masturbation, Pining Dean, Self-Hatred, Temporary Amnesia, Universe Alteration, as in the Amnesia comes and goes
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-10-13
Updated: 2015-07-26
Packaged: 2018-02-20 23:30:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 29
Words: 28,919
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2447078
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crashcrashBURN/pseuds/crashcrashBURN
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What if the memories Cas took from Sam are more than memories?<br/>What if Cas said "yes" when Dean asked him to get out of purgatory with him? </p><p>There's only one true answer to both of those questions and that is that Dean doesn't have enough alcohol in his blood right now to deal with this.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I temporarily kidnapped some characters, because I couldn't sleep. I'll return them to Kripke's asap.

Dean has yelled at Cas some days ago. It was a bad decision, he knows that. It always is. It was a desperate decision, too. A last attempt to make him care. Alas, too late.

At night Cas’s face, crumpled and sad, comes running through his mind. It flashes up, again and again, and Dean shakes his head. He tries to lose him, but Cas is on his scent and not letting go. Cas always finds him and the expression of a broken man haunts his sleepless dreams.

His eyes are burning and he doesn’t know if it’s because of tiredness, unshed tears or just booze. His legs burn with restless energy, but the bed is squeaky and Sam is in the bed next to his (shh, Sammy sleeps, gotta take care of Sammy).

Dean shuts his eyes tight, tries not thinking. Maybe he’ll push his eyes out their sockets if he rubs hard enough and he’ll stop seeing… Yeah, he definitely did not get enough sleep. He raises the whiskey bottle to his lips and tries to not spill too much ~~gravity’s a bitch, ey? Don’t know why I bother, ‘snot as though this bed’s squeaky clean either. Full of stains, piece of shit~~.

He imagines what he would’ve done if he could do whatever he wanted to. If he didn’t care for the world with all its judgemental stares and all the innocence in it, all the good and bad wrapped up with a big red ribbon, what would he have done?

He probably would’ve kissed that frown of Cas’s forehead, first, didn’t suit him anyway, made’m look even older. One hand at Cas’s neck, the other flyin’ through the air to come crashing against his back. With the motion (because Cas lets Dean move him around for whatever reason that stupid angel has come up with. Dean ~~lov…~~ likes that about him) Cas would’ve gone, knocked against his chest, one grunt (Dean’s), ‘cause of the force of the impact.

He’d have nuzzled Cas’s hair (Dean’s drunk alter-ego is a chick. Well, it’s only in his head and it’s not like’s dead daddy ~~wait, deaddy, eheheheh~~ can say somethin’ ‘bout it, can he now? ). His cheek would have brushed against Cas’s soft hair, while his nose went down, looking for the strongest source of scent and heat.

In, he would’ve pulled Cas tighter and Cas would’ve went, ‘cause he’s such an awesome friend (Dean needs another mouth full of whiskey at the reminder of the way how Cas sees Dean).

His hand comes up to wipe away remaining liquid on his lips. They are dry and cracked (would Cas like kissing dry lips? He never looked at Meg’s lips to notice if her lips were dry. Cas did seem to enjoy her kiss). Another drink. He notices his pillow is wet, but doesn’t know the moister’s origin.

He hasn’t allowed himself to think about Cas past few days, only thinking happy thoughts, about how lucky he is his dearest baby brother is in the land of the sane again, no walls come crashing down anymore. The “allowing” thing didn’t go too well so far. Cas has been on his mind a lot. Cas, Cas, Cas. It’s always about Cas, innit?

If he lived in a world without consequences, had all the demon-powers Sammy had once had, he’d’ve snapped’s fingers and Meg and Sam would’ve disappeared, if only for a while. He would have raced forwards, grabbed the hair behind Cas’s ears and pulled them against each other. Teeth clashing, mouths bruising, awkwardly stumbling, trying to find a way to balance the fighting bodies of two grown men (probably would’ve fallen over that stupid board game Cas had hold up).

He could’ve made Cas care, he knows he could have, but he wouldn’t and he didn’t. He sets the bottle to his lips. Empty… Probably for the best. He falls asleep, hugging an empty bottle against his chest and thinking Mary’s promise will be not true, tonight, for the first time in years. No angel will watch over him. Not after all the shit he has done.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This part takes place before the previous chapter.

Dean’s watching Cas sleep. There’s a bottle of Jack at his feet, not opened yet. It’s more of a silent promise; in reach, just waiting to be consumed.

Dean likes the fact that there’s one thing in his life he can count on: if he reaches down, he knows his palm will brush against cold smooth, glass. It’ll be _there,_ ~~which is more than he can say about his best friend~~.

He’s ignoring the other reason that bottle is here. Dean’s given up on making Cas care. It’s not there so Cas can frown at him when he sees the alcohol. He doesn’t need Cas to worry over his _drinking habits_ , like Sam does. Dean swallows. He doesn’t think he’ll be able to handle Cas not caring. He shuffles the bottle with one foot behind his legs, outta sight.

No more worries about what Cas thinks of him. No, this night is for Dean. It’s about Dean ~~basking in Cas’s presence~~ worrying about Cas, Dean wondering how long Cas is going to be like this and how much of Cas’s ‘mental health’ Dean’s fault is ~~all of it, ALL OF IT. Dean you ass, you ruined him! Look what you have done with your best friend. Is that how you treat all your companions? No wonder so many of them are DEAD!~~

Meg said Cas was into board games these days (and bees, but Dean doesn’t want to think about any particular experience with Cas and bees ~~even though he looked really good on top of his car~~ ). If Cas was up and up for it, Dean might play a game with him.

(Dean also didn’t want to think he was dicking around and having fun, while innocent people were dying. He could do something about that right now. Most people would also probably say Dean had done enough for Cas ~~and look where that had got him so far, hmm?~~ )

Tonight was about Dean, though. As long as Cas was asleep, Dean would watch over Cas (how the tables had turned). He figured he could at least return the favour, he owes Cas that much.

Meg comes in, her nurse outfit on. A hot chick walking in a room, looking like that, normally would have sent Dean spiralling into waves of lust. Dean just couldn’t muster up the energy.

She carries two glasses, steals Dean’s Jack and gives him a glass. Dean wants to snap at her to get her own drink, but at least he’s got a full glass now and the whiskey pushes the words down.

Meg wrinkles her nose at the smell (probably used to the better stuff, but hey – it’s a hard drink, and if he drinks enough, he can forget his troubles for a little while).

They’re both staring at Cas now, Dean sitting in his chair, hunched over and looking miserable ~~probably looks everything like his daddy, when Dean was dying~~. Meg is leaning on the back of his chair, her drink in, what he can only describe as, her other claw, ticking a long, polished nail against the glass.

Dean realises this room is probably filled with the two people who love Cas the most: Cas’s demon and the Righteous Man. And though he doesn’t have faith in the douchebag, others call God, he can at least appreciate His irony.


	3. Chapter 3

“Dean,” Meg says and sets her nails into his shoulder, “I know you and Clarence are close, just remember he’s my unicorn, too.” With a final, painful squeeze, she turns around and leaves him and Cas be.

He can’t face the silence right now, the too-quiet-sounds of Cas sleeping ~~wrong, it’s all wrong. Cas isn’t supposed to sleep, he’s a goddamn angel of the Lord!~~

Dean focuses on his breathing and on pouring himself a second drink. He doesn’t want to get shit-faced drunk, but he does want to get a bit of a buzz going, to take the sharp edges off.

Cas turns and mumbles something in his sleep. Dean would smile, ‘cause of the cute picture Cas makes, if it weren’t for the strong sense of This Is Not How It’s Supposed To Be!

He swirls his whiskey around in his glass and counts Cas’s breaths. He matches his easy breathing pattern. Emptying his head seems easier if focuses on such a non-trivial task.

His mind does wonder (of course it does), but he manages to steer his thoughts away from the big topics, such as ‘Sammy’ and ‘Tablets’ and ‘Prophets’ and ‘All The Shit That Went Wrong In The World, That May Or May Not Be My Fault’. Let it never be said Dean isn’t King of Suppressing Things. Well, except for one thing, said exception currently lies lightly snoring on the bed before him.

Cas stirs again. This time Dean thinks he can make out some Enochian. Cas is safe, or at least some parts of him are safe to think about, so Dean lets himself ponder over the quiet and the loud times the three of them had together.

He smiles as he thinks of Cas’s music education, Dean explaining around a mouth full of pie what exactly was absolutely amazing about Led Zeppelin. Cas didn’t get half of his jokes, but seemed steered on by his enthusiasm. Most of the time Cas had worn a smile, once even smiling that gummy smile that was all tooth. It made his whole face light up and did something to Dean’s chest he was not acknowledging.

He doesn’t smile enough, pure happy and pure _Cas_. Then Dean remembers why Cas didn’t smile enough and his chest constricts. Yeah. His fault. He sips his whiskey.

Cas isn’t sleeping deeply anymore; he moves his head from left to right, muttering. Dean thinks he might hear his name. His forehead is clammy and it looks like his blankets have wrapped themselves too tight around him, because of his turning.

Dean gets up, puts his glass down and tries to free him from his prison made of blankets. Cas is still murmuring, but doesn’t seem to make any sense. Dean doesn’t want to wake him up, afraid Cas won’t be able to catch any sleep after he wakes, knowing Cas already doesn’t sleep enough (well, Dean is just going to assume here that he didn’t sleep enough for half a fallen, half whatever-kind-of-angel Cas was right now).

Dean pushes his hair back from his shiny forehead. Cas eyes opens and Dean’s heart sinks. He hasn’t been careful enough. Once more there was living proof Dean isn’t good enough and failed Cas _again._

“Dean,” Cas gasps and grabs the hand that was uncertainly manoeuvring above his head.

“Dean, I’m sorry. I should have been better, I should have tried harder. I tried to keep one step ahead to keep them away from you, Dean. You should run, now, while you still can. I’ll hold them back.” Cas stares at him with ~~desperate~~ feverish eyes that were too blue.

Dean doesn’t know how much Lucifer’s shit has messed with Cas’s head ~~if he weren’t already fucking dead, I’d kill him, drag his sorry ass out of Hell, just to feel his windpipe crush beneath my own hands~~. He doesn’t know if these moments are better than those when he is fully awake and remembering everything. But now he has Cas, _his_ Cas, the Cas that cares.

He touches Cas cheek ~~how pure purgatory used to be~~ and looks him straight in the eye. He tries not to tear up, or let his voice quiver.

“No, we’re not going anywhere without you, man, you know that! It’s not your fault, anyway. If it hadn’t been for me, you wouldn’t have been in this mess. Why don’t you ‘n me get some sleep, Benny’ll stay up and take the first watch, okay? Tomorrow morning will figure something out.”

Dean is just saying whatever would get Cas trying to fall asleep again and Cas wasn’t buying it.

“Look man, I’m tired as hell, it’s been a shitty day and I just want to sleep, so it’d be great if you could get on with the program.”

“Do not blaspheme,” Cas mutters more out of habit than true conviction. Cas bites his lip, a human nervous tick and Dean wonders if Jimmy is still inside there somewhere.

“My grace feels different from normal, I – ” Cas hesitates again, stuck on the words to ask for help. Dean smiles and nods, he understands. Relief bubbles up from his chest, because Cas seems willing to try sleeping again (he cannot always be persuaded, being a freakin’ angel and all, never needed any sleep before).

“Yeah, I’ll stay with you.”

It seems like such an easy promise to keep, something he could do right. He doesn’t really understand what exactly he promised, until Cas pulls him in by his wrist. Dean follows, a bit reluctantly, mostly hesitating (hey, he’d do whatever to keep Cas happy, right?). Cas disregards (again) Dean’s personal space, finds a nice spot on his chest and continues to use him as a pillow. He settles on his chest like he belongs there, like he’s got a right to lay on any of his fucking body parts. Dean freezes, he's crossing some serious not-gay-just-friends-lines here and he's not so sure he (or a sane Cas) appreciates that.

But then Dean breathes out, remembering Cas is ill and an angel. He doesn’t get the human rules. Most of all, Cas is a friend, who needs his help. Help, he can relatively easily give. And Dean relaxes.

Cas lets something out that comes close to a happy sigh. He’s fast asleep soon enough.

The same can’t be said about Dean, though. One arm around Cas and acting like a giant, human and alive pillow for Cas, staying up ‘til sun beams find their way into Cas’s room.

Gently he gets up, careful not to disturb Cas. He grabs his stuff and makes his way to his Baby, trying to tell himself leaving Cas behind is a good thing.

It’s going to be a long drive.


	4. Chapter 4

Dean and Sam arrive in a small city, the Impala rumbling beneath them. He parks in front of a chain food restaurant that sells cheap beer, breakfast and if Dean’s lucky – his mouth starts to water at the thought – _pie_.

He pets the dashboard affectionately and gets out, yelling towards Sam to hurry the fuck up. He opens the door and gets hit by the smell of cold coffee, grease and an undertone of sweat.

They both order a coffee after sitting themselves down at a table near the back. Sam gets whatever rabbit foods he feels like having and Dean orders a pig ‘n a poke. “For old time sakes,” he says with a wink when Sammy looks at him with a frown.

Sam scans the newspapers and Dean flirts with the waitress in hopes of getting some new information. She seems unimpressed and gives him the stink-eye when she stamps off ~~Dean wonders if he’s getting old.~~ After their waitress clatters their plates on the table in front of them, another one comes to their booth.

She gives them a refill on the house and says: “Don’t mind her; she’s had a bad week. Her girlfriend broke up with her, you know?” She frowns at the door the girl had disappeared through and then shakes her head.

“So what brings you boys to our little town? I reckon you’re not from around here.” Sam puts his ‘serious, but if you want to talk, I’m here’-face on and says:

“FBI,” Dean pulls his badge out along with Sam, “We’re investigating the deaths of Isaac Abbington, Rick James and Ally Shepardson. Did you know any of them or have you noticed something out of the ordinary, lately?”

“Apart from the accidents?” The woman laughs nervously, “No, not really. Ally used to work here, on Saturdays. It was her only day off - I mean, the only day she wasn’t out horse riding. She used to love them, horses, never could shut up about them. It seems such an irony…” the woman shuts up, looks away, blinks a couple of times with her hand covering her mouth, before she continues: “Well, some would say it’s funny she died doing something she loved so much.” She exhales loudly.

“I’m sorry, Ally’s death has been a rough patch for all of us and I’m just a little bit scared. My grammy was superstitious and used to say: “Emmy, when there is lots of people dyin’ and them crows is sittin’ on the roofs, you better grow some eyes in your back, ‘cause I’m tellin’ ya the dead is dancin’ in their graves.”

“Crows?” Dean asks, before he can stop himself and Sam shoots him a look that basically says: ‘Dean you’re being insensitive again’.

“Yeah, crows, I’ve been seeing a lot of them, lately.”

“Okay, mrs…”

“Steward.”

“Mrs Steward, has Ally been acting different before she died? We understand that this might be difficult for you to answer, but anything would be helpful. Some things you might have heard about Rick or Isaac perhaps.”

Emmy takes a deep breath, “Ally didn’t seem any different to me. I don’t know much about Rick, just that he was in the rivalling lacrosse team. This town has two schools, a public one and a private school. Isaac goes to… used to go to our school in this part of town, and Rick to the private one, in the richer neighbourhood. I don’t know anything more than that. Isaac was a sweet kid, he didn’t deserve to go that way.”

“Thank you, mrs Steward –”

“Oh please, call me Emmy,” Dean mentally rolls his eyes at the doe-eyes ‘Emmy’ is making at his little brother. Sam smiles tightly and says:

“Emmy, you’ve been of great help. Would you mind…” Dean drifts off as Sam begins to ask for the bill.

 

“So, watcha think?” Dean asks as soon as they are outside, “Any idea what we’re dealing with?”

“No, not yet,” Sam says with a frown, “The crows, though, do you think they’ve got anything to do with this case?”

“Meh, it’s probably nothing, but the superstition of an old woman who didn’t know right from left.”

“That’s grand coming from you. I think you’re right, though, most likely the two things aren’t related.”

“So, you wanna go to the police station, check out the coroner’s report? I’ll pay the grieving families a visit.”

“Yeah, sure.”

“C’mon, I’ll drop you off at the station.”


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sammy's POV, because Sam obviously needs some love after last night's episode. Ouch...

“Agent,” Sam shakes the hand that is thrusted out towards him.

“Agent Stanley, FBI,” Sam introduces himself.

“I could tell from the suit. Jackson.”

“I’m here for the bodies of James, Abbington and Shepardson.”

“Yeah, I figured as much. Didn’t think it was something the feds would stick their noses in, though.”

“We usually don’t, but it has been a slow week.”

“Of course it was, agent Stanley,” the man chuckles. A woman sticks her head out of an office;

“Jackson, I want the report on Ally Shepardson’s death at the end of the day on my desk, understood?”

“You got it, missus.” Jackson salutes her mockingly and leads him towards the coroner’s office.

“My boss,” he explains, “wouldn’t want her on my bad side.” He fake-shudders.

“Here we are. I would take a moment to brace yourself, chap, it ain’t a pretty picture.” Sam nods gravely. He goes in and has to blink a few times, the lamp shining too brightly after the dusk of the not very well-lit hallway. A blend of antiseptics and the smell of rot attacks his nose. The pathologist is enthusiastically cutting into what seems to be the body of Isaac Abbington.

“Excuse me…” The old man looks up and smiles.

“Ah, good sir, ‘tis a pleasure to meet you. May I ask what the occasion is?” Sam smiles at the man fervour and quickly explains the situation. Not even half an hour later, he is helping the man with ‘discovering the secrets of mister Abbington’ (“normally, a thing like this isn’t allowed, but you seem like a fine, young gentleman, who would enjoy taking a good dig into a corpse,” he says with a wink).

The pathologist tells a good story and explains what they find. He points to a couple of pictures he had taken, before he had cut Isaac open.

“This here is probably a bite of a very large dog or a wolf – you can tell by the size of the incisors and how far apart they are. The victim lost a lot of blood, but that only weakened him. What did kill him, was the internal bleeding, that were caused by colliding with the beast that killed him and falling to the ground. Most likely it is a dog, since there do not live any wolves here. I assume you want my full report once I’ve finished it? I think you’ll be able to pick it up tomorrow afternoon.”

“Thank you, sir. This has been the most someone has done for me in a while. I enjoyed myself.” Sam shakes his hand sincerely and holds his gaze.

The coroner chuckles and says: “Most people don’t say thank you when you make them hold the organs of a dead body.”

“I am not most people.”

“I know, Sam.” Sam’s eyebrows shoot up at the mention of his real name ~~he sure as hell hadn’t given it~~ and his hand flies to the back of his pants where he tucked his gun.

“Don’t worry; I used to be a friend of Bobby. He always spoke of you fondly, Sam Winchester. Just go to your brother and find the bastard who is killing the town’s people.” Sam nods, not sure if he should trust the man. The coroner scribbles something down on a bit of paper and hands it over.

“This is my phone number and email. Do call sometimes when you feel like digging into a corpse. It does get lonely out here without the old coot dropping in some times.” Sam studies the man who smiles sadly. He seems to be genuine. Sam takes the paper and walks out of the office, a half-shouted “good luck” trailing after him.

 

Sam drums on a table while waiting for his brother to pick him up. He has already spoken to the other police officers that are on the cases of their victims.

He looks up when he hears the sound of a door opening. His brother comes walking in. His stride is confident and Sam takes comfort from that. His whole life has been incredibly unstable, except for the presence of his brother. Sam would be lying if he said that he didn’t thank God for the miracle that is his brother, whenever he did pray ~~which had been happening less and less, now he thinks of it. No surprise there~~.

“What?” Dean asks with his brows drawn up. Sam coughs and says:

“Nothing, just grateful you’re here.”

“Where else would I be, Sammy?” Dean says confused, obviously not following his trail of thought. Sam blushes.

“Never mind. So did you find anything?” They walk to their car.

“Nah, not much. Only went to Isaac’s and Ally’s so far, figured I could your puppy-eyes when we meet Rick’s parents. From what I’ve heard those two are big snobs.”

“Anything that binds the three of them together?”

“Well, all of them had a big game coming up; Isaac and Rick were supposed to play against each other next Saturday. Ally had a horse riding tournament in two weeks. Ally and Isaac went to the same school, though Ally had graduated a couple of years ago. Her parents said she was saving up all her prize money to start a ranch of her own. Isaac was a quiet kid, did his homework, grade-A student. He played in the lacrosse team because it would get him faster into better colleges; maybe even get him a scholarship. Not because he was any good at it, though, he sucked at it. All victims are pretty young, too, no older than twenty-two.”

Sam opens his door and bites his lip.

“It seems like Rick sticks out, if it weren’t for the fact that he played lacrosse. Ally and Isaac both died because of some sort of animal attack. Isaac died because he got attacked by a wolf and Ally’s horse fell after the wolf bit into its leg. The horse survived, Ally did not. Both Ally and Isaac come from poor families and have to save up to make a future for themselves. Rick died because somebody robbed and stabbed him. Do you think it could be a coincidence?”

“Could be. Probably should check it out anyways. Do you think it could’ve been a werewolf?”

“No,  the attacks weren’t timed with the lunar cycle. Plus, a werewolf wouldn’t have left Ally’s body untouched.” Dean nods. They drive for a while in silence. Then Sam says:

“I met a friend of Bobby’s.”

“Yeah?” Dean’s voice is carefully cleared of emotion. Sam knows he has to tread lightly.

“Well, I don’t know if he knew Bobby, but he seemed to know us.” Sam frowns when they pull up at the motel.

“I thought we were going to meet Rick’s parents.”

“Yeah, well, you smell, man. I’m not meeting anyone before you shower.” Sam rolls his eyes.

“That’s because I helped the coroner, the man who said he knew Bobby.” Dean turns to look at him angrily.

“You helped him when you’re not even sure his story’s true?”

“That was before he told me, you know. And I don’t know, Dean, it seemed like he was telling the truth.”

“‘Seemed’ isn’t going to keep you alive, Sammy.”

“Yeah, I know. I’ll check his story out, before I trust him. Don’t worry.” Dean’s controlled anger transformed into agitation and he stalks through their room.

“Look, you just check dad’s journal, see if it has anything about wolves or competitions. Maybe check the internet. I’m gonna shower and when I’m done, we’ll leave, okay?” His brother stops pacing long enough to hold his gaze for a couple of seconds before looking away, like a caged animal. He sighs.

“Yeah sure.” Sam grabs his clothes and goes for the bathroom.

Half an hour later he treads out and asks Dean:

“You any wiser?”

“Nope.”

“Okay. Let’s go.”


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter starts the night after Dean and Sam come back from Rick James' place. The total time span is about a week.
> 
> Oh, and perhaps I should warn you, this is a bit of a heavy chapter.

Dean is sitting at the crappy desk in their motel room. It’s in the middle of the night and Sammy spread out on his bed, rolled onto his belly. His breath is the only thing that can be heart. The curtains are open (something he usually wouldn’t do because of safety reasons, but he needs light and he doesn’t want to wake Sammy) and the moon is the only light-source that illuminates the room.

Is he actually going to do this thing? He stares at the blank piece of paper before him and tries to make his mind up.

 

_Fuck it._

With a shaking hand he reaches for the pen. He breathes in and out, undoes the cap.

“Dear Cas,” he writes. No. Too chick-like.

“ ~~Dear Cas,~~ Hello Castiel,” Jesus, what is he; an angel? He strikes that, too.

“ ~~Dear Cas,~~ ~~Hello Castiel~~ , Hey Cas,” Dean wrinkles his nose at how stupid it sounds. _It’s at least not as bad as the previous two_. He’ll use it. For now.

“Hey Cas, How’s it been?” _Oh, I dunno, Dean, he’s only lying in a hospital with a demon taking care of him. How do you think he’s been?_ Dean almost scratches it out, but then changes his mind. Maybe…

“I’m good, great even.” _Yeah, like Cas is going to buy that lie. Awesome, by the way, how you manage to mention in the first two sentences you’ve written down that you absolutely do not need him. Way to make a guy feel welcome._

“I miss you” _And there’s the other side of the coin: the emotional crab. Good job, Dean, you think he’ll come running back to you now?_

“ ~~I~~ We miss you, me ‘n Sammy.” Dean chews on the back end of his pen. He scratches the “we miss you out,” until it’s an ink-stain and then the “me ‘n Sammy,” too, a couple of times.

“How’s Meg?” Dean immediately scratches that one out, too, he _doesn´t_ want to know about _Meg._ He sighs.

Why is this so hard? This is _Cas_ , of all people, it _should_ be easy to talk to him ~~it always is~~.

Dean hunches his shoulders and finishes his letter with a frown marring his forehead. Hesitatingly, he adds the last line, reads his words over. He frowns and shakes his head.

“Idiot,” he whispers softly to the quiet room.

He grabs the letter and crumbles it into a ball. His hand opens and the wad of paper falls out. He stares at the lump on the table and thinks:

“This is what Dean Winchester looks like to an outsider.”

 

_Just a mess of words and feelings._

_Just trash._

_Thank God no one ever looks any closer, they’d see something worse: not just a worthless piece of shit no one cares about._

_No, they’d see someone people care about, someone people treasure and love._

_Someone who keeps disappointing the people he loves most. For all the good things they have given him, Dean has given thrice as much shit back._

_All the people he’s met, all the people he cares about, he’s just let them down. Ellen, Bobby, Jo, Ash, Garth, Mom, Dad, Cas, Sam._

The list is endless and every name is a stab in his heart.

 _All he ever manages to do is hurt people. If it weren’t for the fact that his being here helps people whose life has been untouched by his, he’d probably not even be here_ ~~bullet, meet brain; now play nice~~.

_Fat lot of good has he been to all the good American citizens, he’s never met but tried to save. He freakin’ jumpstarted the apocalypse, for God’s sake! What the fuck is wrong with him that he thinks he’s good at this job?_

_Oh, right._

_He’s good at_ killing _things._

He sighs; he needs more alcohol for this shit. While he looks for a beer, a voice like a broken record player recounts in his head all the names of the people he didn’t save and should have.

 

 

He falls asleep three hours later, too drunk of his ass to remember his own name let alone Anyone Else’s.

 

** A couple of days later **

Sam Winchester is cleaning out the motel room, because his brother is too much of a slob and honestly, he can’t think when his working space looks like this.

He gathers the empty bottles of beer – Dean has been drinking more lately, and Sam doesn’t know why. It worries him – and Sam notices a piece of paper. Curiosity gets the better of him and Sam carefully peels the paper out of its balled up state.

This is what it says:

“ ~~Dear Cas,~~ ~~Hello Castiel~~ , Hey Cas,

How’s it been? I’m good, great even.

~~I We miss you, me ‘n Sammy.~~

~~How’s Meg?~~ We’ve been working on a case and think there’s a wolf involved.

~~Your angel mojo could have come in handy.~~

This old lady, Emmy, has a crush on Sammy. She makes a really good pie.

 

I wish you were here.

 

 ~~Love~~ , ~~Yours~~ , ~~Greetings,~~ Sincerely,

Dean”

 

Sam grabs another sheet and scribbles down quickly:

“Hey Cas,

Thought you might want to see this.

Sam”

 

He then searches for an envelope: he has a letter to send.

 

** More days later **

A letter arrives. Dean holds it in his hands like it’s made of the most fragile glass known to mankind.

He squints at the familiar scribble. He knows it as well as the back of his own hand ~~could it be? Is it he?~~ He draws a knife out of his pocket and flicks it open: instant letter opener. With trembling hands he pulls the letter out of the envelope.

“Hello Dean,

All is well. Meg is fine, too. She has been bringing me books and a game called ‘Sorry’. I enjoyed playing it very much.

I hope you find the killer soon.

Though I do not wish to fight anymore, I do find myself wishing from time to time that I was at your side.

 

With kind regards,

Castiel”

 

There's one spot Cas has scratched out vehemently.

If Dean holds the letter at a certain angle he can read it. It says “I miss you, too.”

 

 

“Sammy,” Dean bellows.

“What Dean?” Sam’s wearing his bitch face, probably pissed off for being interrupted at whatever he was doing.

“What have you done?”

“What?” Sam says blankly.

“Have you been going through my stuff?”

“Take a look around. Can you see how much of mess our room is? It’s kind of hard to tell what exactly is yours, Dean,” Sam says his name like it’s some sort of accusation, of what, Dean doesn’t know.

“Do not play innocent with me. Have you or have you not sent a letter to Cas – ”

“Why, did he send something back?”

“Goddamit, Sammy! Answer my fucking question!”

“Look, it seemed like you wanted to write him, but simply didn’t have the guts to send it. I did what you couldn’t do and now you have the result in your hands,” Sam nods in the vague-ish direction of his hands, in which he holds Cas’s letter.

“Aren’t you glad you finally heard from him? He’s your best friend and you haven’t spoken to him in weeks. I only tried to help you,” Sam ends with a pleading tone.

“Fine,” Dean mutters to himself after angrily running his hands through his hair and sighing.

“Fine. Thanks, I guess.” He looks down at his hands, where he has been subconsciously rubbing the letter. _Nervous tick,_ Dean tells himself, _not a sign of affection_. He smiles anyways. Sam looks pleased.

So maybe he likes the letter a little.

And maybe no one needs to know Dean goes to bed with more than just a knife under his pillow that night. ~~He doesn’t remove it, either.~~

 

Maybe this can be his dirty little secret.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am /so/ sorry for the Beauty and the Beast reference. 
> 
> (Well, actually not too much, but I do feel like a giant dork now)


	7. Chapter 7

Dean rings the doorbell and holds his badge up as the door opens.

“Good afternoon, ma’am, FBI. I’m agent Marvel and this is agent Stanley. May we come in?” The woman looks them up and down, and says:

“May I see your badges?” Dean and Sam hand them wordlessly over. Dean can see Sam is secretly relieved they didn’t put one of his ‘blue steel’ pictures on his badge. The woman looks their badges over and no matter how many times they’ve done this, Dean always holds his breath, before he remembers they’re pros, they’ve done this so many times and real wouldn’t be distinguishable from fake anymore.

The woman finally nods and gives their badges back. She opens the door and says:

“Come in.”

She looked horrible, like she hadn’t been sleeping in days, but her back is straight as she leads them towards her living room.

She offers them refreshments and when she comes back, she looks better, like she splashed her face with some water.

Dean gets why the townspeople tell him she’s got a stick shoved up her ass, but he also gets she just lost her _son_ and when he looks at her face – demanding, and a cut-the-crap look firmly in place – he can only respect how well she’s keeping it together.

 

He simultaneously hates and loves doing this; he’s about to tell a grieving woman, her son was not only cruelly murdered, but that someone planned to do that all along and hated her kid enough to kill him. And after he kills the SOB that might have killed Rick, too, he’s going to have to say:

“We’re so sorry, ma’am, turns out it was a stab-and-rob. We apologise for any _inconveniences_ we might have caused you.”

 

On the other hand, he gets to meet the people he helps, be out on the field, and see he’s doing some good. He gets to remind himself that there’s a reason for doing this.

This is him taking his best shot at revenging the people who died in this town, because he wasn’t fast enough to save them ~~he never is~~.

 

He snaps out of his inner monologue as soon as Mrs James says:

“What can I do for you, agents?” Sam sets his mug down on the table before him.

“Mrs James, is your husband home?” Dean cringes as he remembers that he asked Ally’s mom the same question. She looked at him coldly and told him:

“I sure as hell hope not, seeing as I divorced him seven years ago.”

Thankfully Mrs James just says:

“No, he’s at work. Why?”

“It just seems easier to do this one time. That’s all,” Sam reassures her. Dean gets tired of Sam’s dancing around the subject and interferes:

“Ma’am we have reason to believe that your son’s death was more than just robbery and is somehow related to the recent deaths of Ally Shepardson and Isaac Abbington. Do you know anything that help our case or confirm our suspicions?” Sam shoots him a dirty look, but James nods in his direction; he knows she appreciates his bluntness.

“I’m afraid I can’t help you,” Dean nods, “But if what you say is true, I expect you to do everything in your power to catch the bastard that killed my son.” This is the first time Mrs James has shown another emotion than determination; anger. Grief. Dean nods grimly and shakes her hand.

“Will do.”

Sam says:

“Thank you for the tea, ma’am. This is my phone number; please call if you remember anything else. Do you have the times your husband is home so we can ask him some questions, too?” She writes the times down and shows them out.

 

As soon as they are in the car, Sam bursts out:

“What the fuck, man?” Dean knows what he is aiming at.

“You weren’t getting to her with the puppy-eyes act.”

“Getting to her? This is an actual person we’re talking about, Dean! We’re not here to push buttons so we can see what happens. We’re here because someone’s _son_ died and we want to give those people some justice!”

“I don’t see how justice helps those people when they don’t even know the death of their kids is ‘justified’.”

“Dean.” Sam says warily, tired. Dean knows he’s being unfair to Sammy. If Sam thought change would be for the better, he would change the system, but they both know it’s too dangerous.

Better let some happily live in oblivion than all of them in this shithole that hunters know to be ‘the real world’.

“Yeah, I know. Sorry.” Dean tries not to think about how much they’ve been fighting lately, how easily to irritate he’s been. ~~He tries to tell himself it’s not because of the trench-coat shaped hole in their backseat. He fails miserably.~~

They drive in silence, Sam stubbornly looking out the window. Dean turns the music off and says:

“Okay, what is it. Spit it out.” Sam trying to hide that he’s wearing a hurt look. Dean groans:

“Man, you were s’posed to look at _her_ like that and make her spill all her darkest secrets, not at me.”

“You didn’t even let me try. I could have made her talk, but you just snapped at her and dragged us out before we got to know anything.” Sam is talking angrily to avoid sounding like a sulky teenager. It’s not working.

“She needed someone to tell her straight up what happened to her son. She also needs to go through what she just heard, and when she remembers something, she’ll call. I thought she’d be a tougher nut to crack.

“Next time, I’ll drag you along to Ally Shepardson’s place, okay? Her parents are more in your ally than mine.”


	8. Chapter 8

Dean is frying some bacon (breakfast for champions). He winks at Sam who just got up. Sam grumbly stretches out and collapses in his chair.

“Do we have any coffee?” he says while rubbing his face. Dean, who has foreseen this problem, says:

“In front of ya.”

“Thanks.” Sam yawns, takes a drag of his coffee and frowns at his phone, which just started ringing.

“This is agent Stanley, how can I help you?”… “Yeah”… “Really, Crows?”… “Yeah, we’ll be there as soon as possible.” Sam looks at him and says:

“That was agent Jackson, the police officer who helped me around at the station. He says there’s been a new victim, Tim Shackles. They found him this morning.”

“Okay, let’s role.” Dean quickly bags their food (he knows better than to let it go to waste).

 

They arrive at the scene within fifteen minutes. Jackson starts talking before they even have time to show their badges, ‘proof’ that they have the authority to be at the crime scene. He begins introducing himself to Dean and follows with information about the victim:

“This morning at 7:18 am, the janitor found the body of Tim Shackles, 35, white male, in his car. He has been estimated dead for about nine hours. Presumably, he was just practicing here,” Jackson gestures to the racing track around him.   
“We’re still not sure how exactly they got into his car, but it doesn’t make a pretty sight. Picked to death by crows,” he shivers, “nasty little beasts. Wouldn’t be my ideal way to go.”

“Let’s just hope that if it’s a killer, we catch him before anyone else has to that way,” Dean says. He subtly looks at Sam and pulls his eyebrow up, so Sam gets his EMF detector ready.

“Mind if we take a look around, officer?”

“Be my guest.” So they walk around a bit, Sammy reading his EMF meter, Dean sniffing the air and probably looking like an idiot.

“So are we looking for the pied piper or what?”

“Could be,” Sam says, “I mean this thing could have had a trained dog or wolf and when the wolf got hurt, they could have changed routine and used crows instead. Sometimes a murder is all it really looks like; a murder, nothing supernatural involved.” Dean grunts at that.

“Seems like your girlfriend was right after all; crows are involved in this thing, whatever this thing is.” Sam makes his best bitchface at the mention of Emmy and Dean swears to himself he’ll drag him along to Emmy’s and make it as awkward possible, just to see that look on his face again.

 

“It doesn’t look like a ghost,” Sam says, as he turns the EMF off with a sigh. Dean can recognise a change of conversation when he sees one.

“No signs of demons either. Think it could be angels?”

“Not likely; why would they go through all this trouble when they could’ve killed them so much easier? So basically we’re down to rare monsters or deities.”

“Seems like it. We done here?”

“Yeah, sure.”

 

“Hey, Jackson!” Sammy calls out.

“Yeah?”

“Looks like you’ve got a lot of sporting facilities around here for such a small town.”

“Well yeah, there’s the whole betting system, which makes a lot of money and some of the betters are very generous to the city to keep it all going. I guess sports are just very popular around here.”

“Okay, thanks. We’ll call you if we make any progress.”

“See you around, Stanley, Marvel.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And so the hunt goes on. Please let me know what you're thinking, I'd really appreciate it.


	9. Chapter 9

After three days of steady researching, Sam says:

“Dean, come here.” Dean thinks nothing of it ~~he probably wants new coffee or something~~.

“So get this: ‘The Morrígan is an ancient war goddess. She can change into a cow, eel, _wolf_ or _crow_. In times of war, she chooses a favoured who would win the war. During the battle she flies in crow-shape over the battlefield above the warriors.’”

“Sounds like it could be her.”

“It gets better; we can prove it’s her.”

“Really, how?”

“This book says we need to find a feather of hers.”

“And let me guess: we do not have one of those things.”

“Actually, it seems like we got lucky. Someone gathered all the feathers in case there are any fingerprints on them.”

“That means we just have to figure out if your coroner-friend is telling the truth, and BAM, we have the feathers.”

“Already checked it,” Sam says as he shows a picture on his laptop with Bobby and another guy Dean assumes to be the coroner.

 

 

“Step back, old man, and let the professionals do their job, okay?” They’re standing in front of a pile of feathers and Sam is reading some old book Dean would rather not too close to (it just screams ‘dirt’ and ‘dust’).

Dean’s getting creeped out by how close that little dude with the impossible name, is. Apparently he’s called Dr A. Platyrhynchos _I mean really, what kinda freakin’ name is that? ~~It reminds him of He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named, whom Dean wasn’t supposed to think about. Dammit, it was going so well, too!~~_

“Okay, it says here you need to drip some holy water on the feathers and you’ll see… Translation gets a bit tough here. Isn’t holy water only supposed to work on demons?”

“I dunno, man, she seems to a source of evil, works for me. Let’s try it.”

And that’s the story of how they were splashing water on crow feathers for the next goddamn hour. (“Do you see anything?” “It’s just a normal feather.” “I think this one smells different.” “It smells like crow.” “But if you tilt it in the light this way, it gleams – ” “It’s just a normal feather, Sammy, put it down and move on!” _~~Dammit~~_ ~~, I wish Cas was here~~.)

Dean sneezes.

“Do you have any cats, doc?”

“Just the ones that used to be my mother’s.” Dean’s sneeze interrupts whatever incredibly boring story the doctor was going to tell involving cats and his mother _who even wants to hear that?_

“Fan-fucking-tastic.”

 

Sam is paring holy water with his serious-business face on, Dean is half asleep and Dr Who-Again? was thankfully gone after Dean had shooed him away with a sneeze-attack (the good man had muttered something about ‘allergy pills’ and ‘getting them’, but Dean figured it was just an excuse to get away from the sneezing mess that was Dean Winchester. Works for him).

Dean nearly falls out of his chair when the water starts hissing as it hits the feather, right next to his ear.

“Okay, so now what?”

“Now we burn it.”

“This better be working, Sammy.” The feather makes a ‘pop’ sound, like pulling a cork out of a wine bottle as the burning match touches its edge and immediately turns into ashes. Sam draws a reverse cross in the sad pile of dust and blows three times. The two of them stare at the old-fashioned letters the fallen ash form.

“At least, we now know it’s her; the Morrígan, Celtic goddess of battle and sovereignty.”

 

 

To his credit, the coroner does return with a glass of water and some anti-histamine. He tells Dean he couldn’t find them and is sorry it took him so long. Dean isn’t listening, so it doesn’t really matter what he’s saying, only that he is blabbering on and Dean doesn’t really have energy for this conversation. Finally, he catches Sammy’s eye and Sam knows he wants to talk battle plans. Sadly the doctor catches on to this, too and asks:

“So, how are you going to catch her?” Sam waits for Dean’s nod, not sure if Dean’s okay with this man knowing their plan.

“Okay, so you know Isaac Abbington, the lacrosse player? He’s getting replaced by a guy who has always on the bleachers, even worse than Isaac himself. Now, suddenly, he’s playing like a pro. My guess the Morrígan has something to do with that. It looks like she’s taken a champion and gone through a lot of trouble to make sure he’s on the team. If we threaten to kill him, she’ll probably show up.”

“Okay, so how do we gank this bitch?”

“According to some legends she is part fay, so iron seems like the logical option. If that doesn’t work we could also try a stake, like we did with Gabriel, before we knew he was an angel.”

“Seems like a plan. Tomorrow we gather supplies and then we kill the bitch,” Dean says dramatically.

“Dork,” Sam grins. Dean looks affronted.

“Bitch.”

“Jerk.”

 

 

“Hey! Hey, you! Yeah, I’m talking to you. Just hold up for a minute.” The kid looks surprised and a bit nervous. Good.

“Where are you going? It’s a little late for you to walk outside, isn’t it? Lots of people have died lately. There are many crazy people out there; you never know what you encounter.” Dean grins dangerously, showing of his teeth that now glim in the streetlights, standing out against the darkness. The kid tries to excuse himself, but Dean won’t let him get away with it.

“You know, all those people died horrible deaths. That man that died, about a week ago – what was his name again? Oh, right, Mr Shackles – they say he died because a crow picked into his throat and his lungs started to fill with blood. Isn’t that sick, man? Just imagine someone going out that way, choking on your own blood.” The kid starts to back away, towards Sammy. _Got’em._

“You look a bit nervous, chap. You didn’t have anything to with it right? Or did ya?” Dean takes threatening steps towards him, making him back up even more. He knows he is smiling feral-like.

The reasonable part of his brains knows he’s enjoying himself too much, that he’s doing something _wrong_. The other part of his brain, the one that is in control right now, doesn’t care. Hell, he _deserves_ this after all the purgatory shit, after _Cas_. ~~Probably. More likely he doesn’t. He ignores his voice of reason for now.~~ This is for him.

 

“Did you know there are old legends about vampires, that they can control animals?” Dean grabs the gun that is stuck in the back of his pants.

“Some blood of the victims was missing, Jake.” Dean lets the kid before him know that he has singled him out, that he isn’t a random person, that he actually knows who he is. Dean knows his name. He can almost smell his fear.

“Most of the victims are convenient for you, aren’t they? You would be better off, if they were dead. You would be on the lacrosse-team,” Dean spits the word lacrosse out.

“And now you’re in and your friend Isaac is dead. Are you a vampire, Jake?” The boy seems to gather his wits now a question is asked.

“You a-are crazy,” he stutters. Dean raises his gun.

“Maybe, but I wasn’t the idiot who killed four people in less than two months. Did you really think we wouldn’t notice?” Dean starts to squeeze the trigger and then drops to the ground. A large crow flies over him, claws outstretched into the now-empty spots where his eyes had been, two seconds ago. Dean is upright on his feet again and aims for the crow. He misses, twice.

The crow makes a sharp U-turn, flying straight ahead at him and Dean waits, gun raised. He ducks aside last moment and the giant crow misses him again. It doesn’t matter anyway, because he is hit in a whole different matter.

The wings that flapped next to his ears for even a second do not sound like crow wings, but like big, shady wings, that he has never seen yet. He freezes and his normally so calm heart rate (one of his many prides) speeds up and beats a name as a fast rhythm (C-Cas, C-Cas, C-Cas). He’s frozen and his breath speeds up and he can’t think and he can’t feel anything but fear, because he is going to die because of one stupid mistake and oh my god he is going to die with someone else than his brother on his mind and he will not get the chance to see either again.

 

He is wrong.

Sam shoots the crow in the wing, running out of the bushes. The crow falls to the ground (iron bullets, bitch) and Dean can move again, so he gets off his ass and pulls out his knife. In four steps he’s looming over her and he pulls her up. She groans and his palm is slippery with the blood out of the wound on her arm. Her lips move and Dean thinks she’s praying until he thinks she’s not.

Her eyes are lighting up and her lips move faster and Dean sticks his knife into her guts before she can finish whatever she started, because he has a feeling it won’t be a good thing.

“That’s for mind-fucking with Jake,” he says not loud enough to be heard by anyone but her and her eyes call him a hypocrite, and she would be _right_ , so he twists the knife.

“And that’s for killing the others. I hope you can die happy know, you twisted, evil freak of nature.” He pulls the knife out and her eyes widen, like she’s surprised pulling it out of her stomach hurts more than putting it in there. She groans and grips his arms tighter, trying to keep herself up.

He wipes his knife on her dress and lets her fall to the ground. She doesn’t get up again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, new chapter. Dr A. Platyrhynchos is based on the character Donald "Ducky" Mallard of NCIS (his name is the latin name of the species mallard).  
> For any of you who watch Teenwolf, you might have guessed Isaac is based on Isaac, because lacrosse and same name and yeah...  
> The ritual Sam uses to figure out to whom the feather belongs (he is right by the way, the ritual is actually solely for demons), is also stolen, because I have no mind of my own and cannot come up with original plots. I've got it from Tais Teng's "Het Derde Antwoord", which is a Dutch book (have got no clue if there are any translations of it).  
> I chose for the Morrígan, because I absolutely loved her in the bookseries "The secrets of the Immortal Nicholas Flamel" by Michael Scott, which I read when I was younger and in "The Iron Druid Chronicles" by Kevin Hearne. Both series are excellent to read, so if you've got a bit of spare time, I'd most certainly recommend them!


	10. Chapter 10

Sam looks at Dean. He is crouched over Jake, a comforting hand on his shoulder. He glares vehemently, while still muttering calming words to Jake. The boy is in shock, shivering with leftover adrenaline and fear.

Dean’s blood is boiling through his veins and he wants to run and scream and laugh until he collapses and runs out of air and his throat is sore. Only he knows he can’t.

Logically he knows he just scared a kid into almost pissing himself, killed some ~~one~~ ‘ _something,’ Dean corrects himself_. He needs to calm the fuck down and check if the boy’s okay.

More importantly, he needs to know the kid isn’t a murderer and planned Isaac and Rick’s deaths along with _her_.

Dean takes a couple of breaths to collect himself and sets a step. Sam signals him to **back the fuck off**. Dean ignores his brother.

“Jake, we,” he says, gesturing to the three of them, “need to have a talk.”

“It can wait,” Sam says, trying not to let anger colour his words. He fails, but maybe he only fails, because Dean is his brother and Dean is supposed to know this shit.

“Let’s just get you back to our place, okay? You can warm up, eat something. We’ll answer the question you have and you can answer ours, if you want to, okay? You’ll be fine.” Jake doesn’t seem to want to come along, but Sam explains why that’s the wisest thing to do and the kid nods and Sam helps him up.

Sam gives Dean a look that says “shut up or else”, so Dean gets in the car and drives the three of them to their motel. Sam gets Jake a blanket and a cup of cacao with three marshmallows.

(Dean doesn’t wonder how many times he made hot chocolate for Sammy when he was upset. ~~“Three is the perfect amount,” Dean would lisp in all his nine-year old wisdom, plopping a total of six white, pillow-y sweets in their mugs, “More would get all molten, you wouldn’t taste the chocolate. Less is even worse, because there wouldn’t be enough sugar in it.”~~ )

Dean sits down in the chair opposite of Jake’s, making himself look big, intimidating.

“So you ever seen that chick before?”

“Yeah.”

“You know who she is?”

“She likes to bet.”

“Does she now?”

“Yeah, she does.”

“Did you ever talk?”

“Not that I know of.”

“‘Not that I know of’? How does that work? She sneaked into your bedroom while you were talking in your sleep or something? Did you or did you not talk?”

“No,” Jake grits out.

“So if you’ve never spoken with her, what was she doing here tonight?”

“I don’t know.”

“Because it sure as hell seemed like she was protecting you.”

“Maybe it was because she was a decent hu- whatever she was, and didn’t like to see adults harassing teenagers.”

“So it wasn’t because you made her kill Isaac and Rick?”

“What?”

“Dean…” Sam says.

“Or did you kill Rick yourself?”

“Dean, that’s enough.” Sam slams one of his huge forepaws, palm down, on the table. Dean can’t tell if he is playing nice cop, or if he’s being nice ~~probably both~~. Dean’s just glad Sammy’s playing along.

“Take a walk,” Sam growls through his teeth.

“Fine.”

 

Sam is staring him out the door and Jake is looking at his hands, ‘sfar as Dean can tell. He makes sure to slam the door on his way out, like the big child he is. He doesn’t care he’s being petulant.

Dean leans against Baby and stares at the moon. It’s freezing and he blows hot air in his cupped hands, rubbing them together.

He doesn’t want to think about the hunt or all the things that went wrong, about why he was being a dangerous maniac without a care for the well-being of anyone, including his own. He doesn’t want to think about why he froze.

He misses purgatory. Or rather, he misses the clarity of purgatory; find Cas, get him out or die in the process. He misses Cas and Dean, their little union. Hell, he even misses Benny, more than he wants to admit.

His chest aches with losses ~~and he doesn’t want to know that Cas is the main reason. He still knows it, damn the man – angel, whatever~~ and Dean absently touches the empty pocket Bobby’s flask used to occupy. He could really go for a drink right now.

He grabs a beer out of the Impala’s trunk, wishing it was something stronger that would warm him from the inside out.

After two other bottles, he’s feeling the effects of the alcohol; his veins have widened and the rapidly cooling gusts of wind carry his body heat to someplace else, that doesn’t need it as badly as him.

“Jesus,” he mutters, putting his hands under his arms. His feet are popsicles, his nose is tingling and running, his cheeks are frozen solid and his Baby underneath him is sucking warmth out of him via his ass.

 

Sam luckily comes out of the motel soon enough, with Jake trailing behind him. Dean tosses him the car keys and Sam’s glare says they’ll talk later.

He swaggers towards the door Sam left open for him – as far as Dean can tell he is walking in a straight line, which means he is not as drunk as he thought. Thank god he’s not a lightweight – and if Sam notices the empty bottles, he says nothing.

 

Dean gets his ass inside and waits for Sam to get back. He doesn’t have to wait long.

“What the fuck was that?”

“What was what?” He slurs more than he intended. Sam says nothing, just waits for him to cut the crap.

Dean finally sighs and says:

“I dunno, man.” He rubs his face.

“Look, Dean, you have been seeming off lately. You just got out of purgatory, things haven’t been going that well, why don’t you take some time off?”

“Can we skip the chick flick-bullshit already? Please.”

“Dean.”

“Where would I even go, Sammy? I don’t exactly know any perfect holiday-destination.” Sam gets what he means: he’s never allowed himself to think that far ahead before, always assumed that he’d be needed right here.

“Why don’t you go visit Cas?”

“And why would I do that?”

“He’s your friend and he’s ill. Why don’t you go check on him, make sure he’s alright.”

“He’s got Meg.”

“Do you even get my point?” Sam doesn’t say she’s a demon nor that that’s the reasons she is not to be trusted.

Ruby is at days still a sore point.

“Right.”

“I’ll be fine.”

“Right.”

“C’mon, man, you’ll be out of it for a while. I’ll take care of the Impala for you,” Sam makes a face at his expression when Sam says he won’t have Baby anywhere near him.

“She belongs on the road, you said so yourself.”

“Yeah, I did. Okay. Fine.”

“You sure?”

“Don’t push it, Sammy.”

“Okay.” Sam gets up and does his weird victory thing out of what he thinks to be Dean’s sight.

“Don’t think I didn’t see that.” Sam embarrassed, rushes into the bathroom at that. Dean lets his head fall on his arms when he realises how much of an idiot his little brother is and groans when he figures how much of an idiot he himself is, letting Sam talk him into this.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> After this chapter basically the events of chapter 1-3 happen. Next chapter will be an explanation what happened in purgatory, because I think you at least deserve to know that part of this story


	11. Chapter 11

Dean finds his way to the clearing, just like the monster promised he would. He sees ~~his~~ the Angel.

“Cas,” he calls out. He is crouching, facing the water.

“Dean,” Cas says softly, almost like he doesn’t want Dean to hear him.

“Cas.” Dean is smiling now, walking with long and steady paces towards him. He hugs Cas, pats his back _and he is real and alive and here_.

He pulls back quickly, can’t stand not looking at him for long, it just feels _wrong_. He looks Cas in the eye and smiles again. He lets go, not being able to resist touching his cheek.

“Nice peach fuzz.”

“Thank you.” He sets a couple of steps back, so he can see more of Cas without having to ‘check him out’ or losing sight of the details on his face.

He looks good, physically speaking. His clothes are a mess, he’s covered in dirt and he smells a bit, but he has no major wounds, no big losses of blood.

He doesn’t look like Dean does; covered in blood – his own and monsters’ – slime and dirt, reeking of all the deaths he has caused.

He remembers his manners:

“I want you to meet somebody. Benny this is Cas, Cas this is Benny.” Benny greets Cas, Dean doesn’t look. Cas barely pays attention to Benny, before his eyes flicker back to Dean.

“How did you find me?” he says and there’s something in his voice. Like he isn’t that pleased to see Dean. Dean doesn’t care, he’s just too happy to have Cas back.

He shrugs, exhilarated and a bit high on Cas’s presence solely. He’s looked for him so long and now he’s found him. Mission accomplished ~~that doesn’t happen often without any troubles, does it? Oh fuck, now it’s jinxed~~.

“The bloody way. You doing okay?” Cas looks away at his question, pissed off talking at a distance that isn’t Dean.

“You mean if I’m still…” Cas makes a gesture like his brains are scrambled.

“Yeah, if you want to be on the nose about it, sure.” Dean gives Cas a once-over, just to make sure he is really okay, to soothe his own jumpy nerves.

“No, I’m perfectly sane.” Dean wants to believe him, _he does_ , but Cas has always been a crappy liar and he isn’t looking at Dean when he says “no”.

“But then, 94% of psychotics think they’re perfectly sane, so then I guess we’d have to ask ourselves: What is sane?” Cas is constantly looking around them, alert, checking out their surroundings.

Dean doesn’t care if they get attacked ~~he has found _Cas_ , for fuck’s sake. They can die now for all he cares~~. They’ll beat them; he’s invincible this very moment, next to his long missed friend. Fate seemed to smile at him today; she can smile a little longer.

Their eyes lock. Dean doesn’t know if he should trust Cas when he says “I’m fine,” because he knows who taught him that sentence is a lie ~~yep, that would be him~~. So he opens his mouth a couple of time before he settles on:

“That’s a good question.” Benny starts talking and again he is reminded of his presence (he’s glad Benny has their back, while he is distracted).

“Why did you bail on Dean,”

“Dude.” Benny is all defensive, suspicious. Dean doesn’t blame the guy after spending so long in purgatory. He just needs to trust Dean when he says Cas is cool.

“The way I hear it, you two hit monsterland and hot-wings here took off. I figure he owes you some back story.”

“Look we were surrounded, okay? Some freak jumped Cas, he obviously kicked its ass, right?” Dean looks at Cas, almost desperate for confirmation.

Cas whispers, his mouth barely moving, eyes full of emotion: resignation, shame, sadness, grief, guilt, regret.

“No.” Dean doesn’t know if he’s heard right. He blinks.

“I ran away.” Dean remembers himself to breathe before answering, pushing the anger down:

“You ran away.” He pulls his eyebrows up questioningly, giving Cas a last chance to deny what Dean hadn’t been willing to hear from Benny, earlier, when they were still looking for Cas.

“I had to.” Cas frowns.

“ _That’s_ your excuse for leaving me with those gorilla-wolves?” It doesn’t come out as a question.

“Dean,” Cas raises his voice, maybe to calm him down, or to catch his voice, Dean doesn’t know.

“You bailed out and what? Went camping? I prayed to you, Cas, every night.”

“I know.” Cas looks away.

“You know and you didn’t –” Dean swallows the words back down. They taste like bile. He licks his lips, swallows, tries to regain some of his calm.

“The hell is wrong with you?”

“I’m an angel in a land of abominations. There have been things hunting me from the moment we arrived.” Cas’s eyes are willing him to understand.

“Join the club!” Dean grits out.

“These are not just monsters, Dean, they are leviathans.” Cas’s anger picks up, too, “I’ve been trying to stay one step ahead of them, t–” Cas stops, looks away and gives up. That one thing he has been holding back spills over his lips:

“To keep them away from you.” Dean feels his anger evaporate as quickly as it appeared.

“That’s why I ran.” Cas is looking away again.

“Just leave me, please.”

“Sounds like a plan. Let’s role,” Benny says grimly.

“Hold on, hold on. Cas. We’re getting outta here.” Dean is trying to make him listen, trying to make him _understand_. The desperation from earlier is back at the edge of his voice.

“We’re going home.” His tight grip on his emotions slips when he pronounces the word home; longing and hope colour his voice.

“Dean, I can’t.” Dean wishes Cas would look at him.

He also wishes Cas means ‘can’t’ in an ‘impossible’ way and not in an ‘won’t’ way ~~he fears it’s the last one~~.

“You can. Benny, tell him.”

“Purgatory has an escape hatch, but I’ve got no idea if it’s angel-friendly.”

“We’ll figure it out.” And he will, after all the impossible shit he has pulled off, he’ll goddamn make sure this goes right, too.

If Cas will let him try, at least.

“Cas, buddy, I need you.” He tries to say it casually, like he doesn’t really mean it, no deeper meaning than platonically. He’s got no clue if he succeeded at not letting his emotions fly out in the gesture like the big cry-baby he is.

“Dean.” Cas is shaking his head and looking like he pities him.

Dean _can’t_ … he **won’t** … He ignores it (that’s what he’s good at) and ploughs on:

“And if leviathans take a shot at us,” he shrugs, like it’s no big deal and like it doesn’t feel like his entire life hanging onto a tattered rope made of hope and dreams. Tries to ignore that voice in the back of his head that’s counting all the ropes made of the same material, that snapped before.

“Let them. We ganked those bitches before, we can do it again.”

He’s trying to ooze confidence, hope Cas will angel-sense it in the air and that it’ll make him say “yes”.

“It’s too dangerous,” and Cas is shaking his head and he’s saying “no” and all Dean can hear is excuses coming out of his mouth.

 

Fine. If Cas is going to be difficult, Dean can be, too.

“Let me bottom-line it for ya.” He looks away, looks back.

“I’m not leaving here without you. Understand?”

“I understand.”

 

Cas says “yes” and Dean is relieved, but he knows that this is by no means over.


	12. Chapter 12

Dean suspicions about Cas not being A-Okay get confirmed when they’re walking. Cas stops dead in his tracks and says:

“Dean Winchester?” Dean frowns, stops, too and says:

“Yeah?”

“I am Castiel, angel of the Lord. I have to raise you from perdition.” He looks around and demands to know:

“Where are we?” He sniffs and answers his own question.

“Purgatory.” Dean blinks in surprise because of the weirdness of the situation and suddenly there is a hand at his throat and he hits the ground. He grunts as his breath gets slammed out of him, trying to cough but the hand tightens. His hands come up to pry the fingers of his neck.

Snarling is coming from his left and out the corner of his eye he can see Benny struggling, undergoing the same treatment.

“Dean Winchester,” Cas hisses, bringing his face close to Dean. Dean can feel Cas’s breath ghost over his face and he shivers.

“You will explain this… situation. Is this some kind of trick?” Cas has one hand on his neck that’s blocking his airway. He doesn’t seem to remember anything that happened the past four-something years, he is looking positively murderous and Dean is completely at his mercy, yet he isn’t scared. If anything, he is more panicking over the fact he isn’t panicking ~~he shouldn’t be able to trust Cas so much, even like this~~.

He knows he is safe.

He’s not so sure he can trust Cas with Benny’s life. Oh, and yes, he seems to have this little problem with the ‘I can’t breathe’-thing

“Cas – Castiel, please.” Cas’s hands loosens a bit and Dean sucks in a welcome breath.

“No tricks, I promise. Just let us up and we’ll explain.” Cas’s hand tightens again and he knows not to push it. He licks his lips.

“You saved me from hell, okay? We beat the apocalypse a couple of years ago, but leviathans got out of purgatory. We kicked their asses and when they got back into purgatory, they brought us along.” Cas’s eyes are flickering up and down, trying to tell if he’s lying. Although Dean is the one lying on the ground, Cas looks like the cornered animal.

“Then why is this abomination,” his eyes flicker to Benny, same look on his face as when he looked at Sam, back in the days, “travelling with us.”

“Watch your mouth, that’s my friend you’re talking about!” Cas looks uncertain and confused.

“Are you aware he is a –”

“Vampire? Yeah, it occurred to me.”

“Then why –” Cas stops himself. “Maybe you should pick better friends.”

“I picked you, didn’t I?” Dean snaps back before he can stop himself. Cas is quiet at that for a long time. Finally he says:

“Angels and humans aren’t allowed to share a friendship.”

“Maybe you broke the rules.” That shuts him up, too. Dean waits patiently for Cas to spill whatever he is so obviously inner debating.

“How do I know you’re not a demon or skin walker?”

“You don’t, no silver or holy water down here. Do you trust me, Cas?” The angel sniffs.

“Not particularly.”

“Then you’re just going to have to believe me on my word.”

Cas stares into his eyes trying to read his soul or whatever he does when he looks like he’s trying to crawl into Dean’s skin (which was kind of scary at the start, because when you know the guy is an angel, you figure that’s literally possible).

Dean holds his gaze, he isn’t afraid anymore. Let him look. Even if Cas doesn’t trust Dean, Dean trusts Cas, whether he knows Dean or not. Cas lets them go and says in a low voice that makes Dean shiver, to Benny:

“I will be watching you.”

 

They stand up and Benny gets close enough to softly tell him:

“You angel is a nutcase, brother. Are you sure you want him with us, because I sure as hell don’t want to miss my ride upstairs because of him.”

Dean knows whispering like gossiping girls in high school won’t help, because Cas will still be able to hear them, so he says on a normal tone:

“If you want to go back up, you should stop telling me to leave him behind. Remember our deal: I go if he goes.”


	13. Chapter 13

In two days they find the portal. In the meantime Cas has gotten normal again, but the days he forgot… well, everything, he seemed driven most, like his sole purpose was getting Dean out of purgatory. Dean didn’t know what to think of that.

Cas was leading them, even though he didn’t know where the hatch was, but it seemed like he would be tagging along with them. It made Dean sad Cas was probably only doing this because of his mission: getting Dean the hell out of whatever realm that was not earth. He did this for Dean, not for himself and Dean wanted him to take care of himself, just for once ~~taking care of yourself, hush? Like how drink yourself to death? Dean snapped back at the little annoying voice to shut up~~.

Cas was back to normal, though, which meant trailing behind the group, holding them back whenever he thought he could get away with it. It wasn’t until Dean told Cas that the longer they remained in purgatory, the more dangerous it would be for them, that Cas snapped out of it.

Cas squared his shoulders, seemingly to have made up his mind. This time he stuck close to the group.

 

And here they are; the portal has been Dean’s source of hope for the past few months.

“Dean, it’s a human portal. There’s still no proof that an angel can pass –” Dean doesn’t want to hear that Cas shouldn’t come with them

“Stow it, Cas. You’re coming. That’s final.” Cas seems torn before putting a hand on Dean’s shoulder.

“I’m just saying… if it doesn’t work, thank you for everything.” Cas looks like he’s trying to put the meaning of the universe into his words.

“Save the hallmark, okay? It’s gonna work. Nobody gets left behind.”

He doesn’t like the way Cas seems to think he won’t see the surface again. He stalks off, hoping to leave his doubts behind him.

 

They only encounter some leviathans nothing big really and then Dean is standing in the portal, Benny burning up in one arm and yelling:

“Hold on!” Cas is yelling his name and he tries to pull him inside, but something is holding Cas back ~~and that something is probably Cas; Cas is holding Cas back and Dean is desperate and he pulls harder, but you try to save an angel that doesn’t want to be saved~~.

Then Cas eyes widen, like he’s been hit by something and he gasps for air. He looks at Dean like he’s seeing Dean for the first time, really and Dean can pull him in the portal. Cas’s body has gone slack and his hands walk over it, trying to find injuries.

He can’t hear his own voice over the roar of the portal around him but he’s sure he’s screaming Cas’s name.

 

First thing he does when he wakes up, is check Cas ~~bad idea; his head is swimming, heartbeat vigorously pounding against the back of his skull~~. He shakes Cas, ignoring the searing pain in his left arm.

“Cas… Cas!” He feels for a pulse (do angels even have pulses? How come he doesn’t know if angels have a heartbeat?)

“Dean?” Cas whispers sleepily.

“Cas,” Dean sighs in relief that is short-lived.

“How much do you remember?” Cas frowns.

“Something about beating Dick Roman.” Dean slumps.

“Yeah, I feared something like that,” he mumbles and then a bit louder: “C’mon, we’ve got a delivery to make.”

Cas looks at his arm.

“Dean you’re hurt.”

“Just get going, we can deal with that later.”


	14. Chapter 14

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Jump-forward through time again :)

“Cas!” Dean rushes in, slamming the door behind him. He locates him immediately; on the other side of the room. He is clutching a piece of wood; he has ripped it off… a poor chair lying three-legged on the ground a couple of feet away from him.

His stance is defensive. There is no part of him that didn’t look cornered. His eyes are shifty.

“Cas,” Dean gentles his voice, “Hey, it’s me, man. Just put the, uhh… chair leg down, ‘kay?” Cas doesn’t respond. Dean isn’t even sure he heard; the only acknowledgement he gets is a flicker of Dean’s eyes. Dean grows hesitant.

“Cas? It’s me. Dean.” He sounds questioningly, like he has forgotten his own name.

“Do you remember me? Dean Winchester, that asshole you were supposed to save from hell.”

“Don’t be stupid, Dean, of course I remember you.”

“Ah, okay then,” he doesn’t like the way his voice shakes. He slowly gets his silver knife out of his left pocket, making no sudden movements.

He flicks it open and Cas flinches. _Right._ He moves his hand to the arm he has trusted out towards Cas, palm down ~~probably looks like some guy in a chick flick, trying to calm a wild horse down~~. He draws a line with the silver, across his arm. His muscles draw up, but he doesn’t flinch. He pulls a flask out of his pocket, holding it up.

“Holy water.” He toasts and takes a sip.

“I’ve got none of that anti-Leviathan stuff on me. I’d ask Meg to get some, but I bet you wouldn’t be too happy with that.” Cas’s eyes narrows at the demon’s name and his chin lowers maybe half-an-inch. Not exactly a “yes”, but Dean figures Cas likes being respected.

“Hell, you can even angel-scan me.” Dean gets out of his I-am-not-sure-if-you’re-going-to-attack-me-position and spreads his arms wide. Dean has to bite back a _c’mon, search me, big boy_. Cas isn’t a dick, like well… Dick; he isn’t the villain in this fairy tell.

“So what’s the verdict?” Dean askes when Cas’s eyes lose that heavenly glow.

“You seem to believe that you’re Dean Winchester.” Cas says neutrally. Wise man.

“I can do better than that; I know I am Dean Winchester. How about that?” Dean’s eyebrows go up and he cants his head ~~wonder of whom he has picked that up~~.

“Look, why don’t you tell me what you remember and we can solve this pretty quickly.” Cas narrows his eyes and grips his chair leg tighter.

“Or not. We can also just talk. Whatever you want.” It’s silent for a long time before Cas says:

“Last thing I remember is really wanting to have a burger.”

“Like horsemen wanting a burger or…” Dean trails off. Cas sighs:

“Yes.” Dean takes it as Cas remembering Famine.

“Okay.” Dean walks closer and closer until he is in Cas’s personal space and Cas doesn’t back up. He only stands up straight and Dean grabs the hand holding the piece of wood and whispers:

“Let go, Cas.” The leg falls on the ground. He is standing close enough to smell Cas’s breath, coming in short puffs out of his mouth ~~and he is absolutely not looking at his best friends mouth right now, he’s not. Nope, nope, nope~~ and his gaze goes up to safer terrain; his eyes ~~only those soul-staring orbs filled with sea water aren’t really any safer than lips to be honest~~. He lets go of Cas hand ~~it feels too much like hand holding, really~~ and lays his hands on Cas’s shoulders, gently pushing him towards the bed ~~Dean also doesn’t think about all the delicious things they could do on that big, soft bed; how Cas would arch his back or how pale his skin would look in the moonlight~~. Cas’s pupils blow out and he licks his lips ~~something that definitely gets noticed by Dean~~ , something Dean definitely doesn’t notice.

And then Dean is pushing Cas down on the bed _“to sit on, you sex-starved perv!” Dean accuses his brain (and perhaps his little brain, too)_ and Dean is sitting next to him, just a little bit too close to be socially acceptable, but Dean doesn’t really care. Neither does Cas, or he doesn’t seem to mind.

“Do you mind?” and Dean gestures to the space between the two of them, because he genuinely wants to know. Cas doesn’t understand him correctly and shoves a couple of feet over to create more distance. Dean’s heart does this “I just got stabbed”-thing at the loss of proximity.

“So, uhm, some things happened. Uhh, in the meanwhile of what you remembered and today. You kind of forgot some things. We don’t know why you forget things – well, actually we do, but it’s kinda a long story and it has to do with Lucifer, but whatever – and I guess I wanted to give you a head ups. We’re going to angelproof this room, like make sure your powers are limited.

“You almost killed Meg, which she didn’t greatly appreciate by the way, and we’re going to make sure that sort of thing doesn’t happen again. It’s for your own protection. Don’t look at me like that, it is! You might not remember it right now, but you actually like Meg and you wouldn’t like it if something happened to her. So we’re just taking some precautions to assure nothing happens.”

Dean knows it is a sucky speech and nothing he was going to say was ever going to make him feel better – they were going to take his powers away and of course he was going to fucking hate it – but he hopes he understands it for the best.

“I won’t let you,” Cas says that tiniest part of anger peeking through his voice.

“I know, Cas, I’m not asking you to.” Dean’s voice is pleading and he knows that it’s very much what he’s asking him. Or more likely; he wants Cas to not be angry with him. To not hate him.

“I’d like you to leave.” Dean sighs defeated and hangs his head.

“Yeah, I know.” He gets up, walks outside. Tries to not make his feet drag too much.

 

Dean wonders if this is what it’s like to have a guinea pig and clean their lairs or whatever those things are called.

Cas is standing in a circle of holy oil that’s burning. Dean’s painting sigils with a tin of newly acquired blood (“only a day old, sir!”). Cas is vibrating anger-with-a-capital-A, trying to kill him with looks only. Dean is glad there’s Cas is locked up safely in his circle, ‘cause he’s pretty sure it’d have worked, too, if he hadn’t been.

He’s glad he’s out of that room within an hour.

 

Meg is leaning against the wall next to the door.

“Meg.”

“Winchester.”

“Can you do me a favour?” He sounds tired.

“Depends.”

“Can you give him a notebook, when he remembers things again, so he can try to write some things down? Memories and stuff. Then if he freaks out, he can read back and all that, maybe you won’t need to call my ass down here.”

“Sure thing.” Dean turns to walk away.

“Winchester.” He looks back.

“Thanks. For what you said back in there.”

“Why? It was the truth.”

“I know, but still.”

“Yeah… You, too.” Meg raises her eyebrows. Dean sputters on:

“Thank you, I mean. I don’t know what would have come of Cas… We couldn’t have done it without you.” He then turns around and practically flees, making sure to keep his pace down enough to make it not look like fleeing.

He can feel Meg’s smirk in the backside of his neck for the entire trip back to Sam.


	15. Chapter 15

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry, I'm not going to be able to post as much as I have been before, I'm a bit busy.  
> I'm kind of hoping to make up by giving you finally that M-rating I promised...

Dean faces the smiling siren; broad grin on his face, his teeth glim in the light. Dean keeps his eyes on the creature, but he knows if he looks to his left, he’d see its true appearance in the mirror that’s hung up.

Hell, that had been one stupid mistake. It’s pretty easy to spot a monster when it’s constantly walking by mirrors. Dean squeezes the hilt of his knife just for a bit of reassurance, knowing it can’t do anything; it’s silver, not bronze and it isn’t covered in the siren’s saliva.

So yeah, Dean has a problem, because he has nothing to kill the thing with, only a knife to hurt him. He dropped his bloody knife earlier, when the siren slammed him into a wall.

As far as he can tell, he’s perfectly fine. No skin broken, he’ll walk away with only some discolorations, maybe a bruised rib or two.

He’s backing up now (his ribs protest at his chance) and then says:

“If you want me, come get me.”

Because yes, that’s their brilliant plan; Dean is bait (“Because you’re the pretty one,” Sam had said when Dean had asked) and Sam would be waiting for them with his knife out and ready. As soon as Dean would have passed Sam, he’d turn around and they’d corner him. Only, now Dean didn’t have something to kill the damn thing with.

Dean turns around, runs, leading them to Sam. The siren isn’t running. He just follows Dean’s scent; he, too, knows that there’s no way out. Dean can hear the heavy footsteps behind him, sees the door after which Sammy is hidden and makes the final turn, one that will corner him, too.

There’s another knife hidden behind a tray, but he can’t grab that one yet; the siren will know then it’s a trap.

The siren makes the turn again grinning. Dean wonders if it was a coincidence that they saw so many mirrors. Who is the hunter and who is the hunted?

Dean backs up again, but he can’t really back up, ‘cause there is a wall behind him. His fingers feel around for the blade. Dean mentally cusses Sammy out for taking so long.

“If you’re waiting for that other little snack to show up, you’ll have to wait for a long time.” The mention of Sam pisses Dean off. He grabs the knife and rolls the chart on which the tray was standing into the siren. It falls, but gets up quickly.

His fist connects with its face and he ignores the sharp pain that trails through his knuckles and fingers. The siren staggers and when it finds its balance again, throws a punch back. Dean evades it without a problem, steps in and pushes the siren against the wall with his free hand.

He raises his knife, makes the mistake of looking into its eyes.

The only thing that registers for a second is blue. That too familiar blue shade. He gets drawn in by blue eyes, the ones that haunt his dreams. His breath falters and his chest fills with a longing for calling his angel ‘buddy’ and teasing him and bumping shoulders.

It would absolutely kill him to think about all those who he has lost and allow himself to actually miss them on daily bases. Like Bobby, Ellen, Jo. ~~Mom~~. He doesn’t let himself miss them.

But he misses Cas now and he isn’t even dead. He’s only a couple of hours away, no biggie. He can see him anytime he wants to ~~he wants to see him now~~.

Those eyes make him lose focus on the now and what he’s doing. It catches him soon enough, when there’s a knee in his balls and he doubles over, but there are hands holding him up, twisting the two of them around and suddenly Dean’s pinned to a wall.

The pain clears Dean’s mind and _now_ he remembers what he was doing as the siren’s eyes find his. The bastard grins again, before surging forward, teeth finding his neck.

Dean gasps for breath when sharp fangs pierce his skin and he uses all his strength to push him away.

Too late.

His mind goes hazy and he has no clue where his knife is (he must really stop losing his only weapons) and wow, inappropriate time to pop a boner.

He checks his sheath and finds his silver knife. Not good enough, but it’ll slow it down a bit.

The hand that’s putting pressure on the wound on his neck comes off for a second, smearing blood all over the blade. He throws his knife and misses the heart, but still catches its shoulder. He’s impressed he managed to hit it at all.

 

He finds the bronze dagger; lying on the ground a couple of feet away. He stabs the creature in the chest with it.

 

He feels like either passing out or dry-humping into the nearest fuckable thing. Next thing on the agenda: Sammy, ~~take care of Sammy, Dean!~~

Staggering he finds his way to the room Sam would hide. He has a little trouble opening the door, but it cooperates after Dean kicks it in.

Sam is lying on the ground, just regaining consciousness. He’s groaning, grabbing his head.

“What happened?” Dean collapses. Important details first, Sammy will figure out the rest of the story quickly.

“Bit. Siren dead,” he gets out.

“Dean!” Sam rushes to help Dean. Dean snaps:

“Don’t touch me!” The venom is helping him past the pain and he knows that he doesn’t want his brother’s touch right now, he almost recoils.

“I’m going to help you, okay? Just hang in tight.” Sam grabs the first aid kit they have for emergencies.

“Just let me take care of that bite. It looks nasty.”

“Sammy, get out,” he grits.

“But Dean –”

“Sam.” Sam huffs. He puts the kit within reach and looks at him worryingly. Dean glares at him, or tries to (there are two Sammy’s, he might glare at the wrong one).

With one hand he fishes around in the kit until he finds something that’ll stop the bleeding for now.

 

Then he focuses on the raging erection he’s carrying that’s not going down. He glares at it, but that isn’t helping either. His hand is palming his dick through his pants and the lust coiling in his belly flames up. He groans and his hips are fucking into his hand now, trying to get more friction. The other hand is trying to unbutton his pants.

Then the door opens up and he’s got a lap full of a girl. The rushed footsteps away from this room tell Dean he’s got one _awesome_ brother. He doesn’t know where he got a prostitute at this hour, but then again, Dean doesn’t really care.

She’s got nice tits and her perfume smells heavenly. She’s all soft curves and she’s rocking into him. He gasps for breath and grasps her dress. He frowns.

It’s made of a different material then he expected. It’s too soft.

She’s too soft, all of her.

He doesn’t want her stupid curves and her too sweet perfume that’s clogging his nose, making him unable to smell anything. _Who needs tits anyway?_ He wants hard lines and trench coats and stubble burn and too dry lips that he can wet with his tongue.

He wants a dick to line up with his own and he wants a hard fuck with someone else than the chick that is sitting in his lap right now.

He pushes her off, an action that’s followed with an indignant “Hey!”. He doesn’t care, she hasn’t got too big clothes and a tie that’s tied backwards, or mussed up hair that looks black when it’s wet, but brown if the sun shines down on it.

Everything about this girl is wrong, wrong, wrong.

“Get out.”

“What?”

“Get. Out.” She gets up, and walks to the door woozily because of too high heels. Dean waits ‘til she’s of the room and quickly finishes the job of pulling his pants down. He grabs his dick and fucks into it. He comes fast enough, biting on his left hand to keep quiet, to not let his name spill out.


	16. Chapter 16

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Jump forward in time again, this time in Cas's POV.

Castiel has a rare moment of lucidity, very rare indeed these days. He taps the phone against his chin. He has borrowed it from Meg. She has been very kind; he isn’t sure if he’d give her anything, if he was wearing the same bruises she had around her neck.

_His bruises._

He smiles. He would have flown himself, but that is kind of impossible with all the angel wards on his walls.

 

He is sitting on his bed, facing the windows, quietly contemplating. His matrass is soft, but the sheets are rough. They smell of cleaning product, and on long, warm nights of his own sweat.

Those days Meg gets him up and makes him shower. It’s unusual; he has been accustomed for so long to cleaning his own body with a sweep of grace.  And now he can’t.

Showering is a boring, time-consuming event. It is so human, he has to work for a reward and it makes him feel like he’s Fallen and it makes him mad, because he isn’t Fallen and surely he would not have to pay the prize of something he has no guilt of?

Then of course one could say he bares the guilt of enough other things that being trapped in this, small, confining human body is at the very least something he deserves.

 

He likes the sheets, how they chafe against his skin after he has trapped himself again in them, and tries to turn and detangle himself. It reminds him of how life is sweet, but also ending and bitter.

He has forgotten all things come to an end. Lately that has been more of a pressing matter; Lucifer iss trying to overtake his body and his grace is fighting it, throwing up a wall not-unlike the one Death had placed in Sam’s mind.

It isn’t going to stop his brother forever, though, and he is afraid of what the future will bring. A thousand scenarios jump to his mind and all of them scared him to death.

~~All but one, that one scares him even more, but it also excites him~~.

He wonders what the Winchesters would say if they knew he still calls Lucifer his brother. They probably wouldn’t be too very happy.

He resolves to not calling Lucifer his brother ever again. He’d do anything for the siblings he’d already sacrificed everything for, right?

 

The doors slam open and Cas can hear heavy footsteps marching towards him.

“Cas?” He can hear Dean’s hesitant voice and then it goes softer, like Dean remember who he is talking to: an ill Castiel. He could be labelled for all he knows: handle with care.

“Cas. Hey. Shouldn’t you be in bed?”

“I’m not ill, Dean. At least not in the conventional way. There’s no amount of lying in bed that is going to make this situation any better.”

Dean sighs. Cas is sitting with his back towards Dean, but in the silence that follows he can imagine Dean ruffling his own hair or scratching his neck. He smiles.

“Come sit with me. Please,” He adds the please only after he realises how rude he might sound.

“Uhm, yeah, sure.” Dean walks around the bed and sits down at the other end of the bed. Cas glares at the distance between them, hoping it will cease to exist under his gaze. It doesn’t work.

“So, uhh, why did you call?” Cas would think Dean to be adorable if he were paying any attention to his stumbling over the words. His mind is fully occupied with the Master Plan however.

He thought he’d be more nervous, and he is, a low vibe running through his veins, but mostly he is calm, he is settled and he is determined.

_This could go so wrong,_ he realises. He doesn’t care, no more time left.

He opens his mouth:

“I’ve been thinking lately.”

“Okay. Thinking is good.” It occurs to him Dean is just as nervous, if not more as he is. He wonders why. He wonders if Dean has a purpose to be here, too.

“I don’t have long anymore, Dean.” Dean starts protesting, but Cas cuts him of:

“Please, let me finish.” He waits for Dean’s terse nod before he continues:

“I’m going to fade soon and the person I am now is going to cease existing. It will either be because Lucifer takes over my body or because I will be able to erase my memories and I will drift off as an angel without purpose, without goal. I’ll have no orders to obey, no God to worship and I’ll not be welcome in Heaven. I won’t go to Earth either, because I won’t remember any reason why I should be there. Or maybe I will just get killed, by someone or something, somehow. I don’t know.”

“We won’t let that happen to you, Cas, I swear! We’ll figure something out; find a loophole just like we always have.”

“And what will you do if Lucifer takes over? Kill me? I have no doubt you will do what is right, Dean, but I don’t want you to sacrifice yourself or Sam for me. I have made peace with my destiny and I want you to accept my death, too.”

Dean jumps up in uncontainable energy. Cas watches amused as Dean stalks up and down the room. He suddenly turns towards Cas and points an accusing finger in his direction

“Is this why you called me here? To tell me to accept your death? Because that is not going to happen, buddy!”

Cas smiles weakly at the ‘buddy’. It doesn’t hurt as much as he expected it to.

 

“No, that’s not why I asked for your presence. Please sit down.” Dean stops his pacing for a second time, looks torn and sits down eventually. Cas breathes out quietly.

“Thank you.” Dean nods.

“I know humans have a custom of giving those they sentenced to death a last meal, correct?” He waits for Dean’s confirmation.

“Although I haven’t been taken in custody by the law after found guilty of several crimes, my situation is alike to theirs. I don’t want a last meal, though. I want something else. Something you can provide.” He looks Dean straight in the eye.

Dean blinks a couple of times. He licks his lips and puffs out small breaths of air. Dean opens his mouth, licks his lips again and finally says:

“What do you want then?” Castiel maintains eye contact, saying every word slow and clear:

“I want you.” Dean’s reaction is immediate. His eyebrows go up and he leans away from Cas and he scratches his neck. Cas thinks he can see his pupils dilate. Cas can see that he’s confused, turned on, scared, unsure and panicking. Dean is trying to cover all those emotions up and tries to say casually:

“What do you mean?”

“You know what I mean.”

“No, I really don’t, so humour me and tell me what the fuck you want.”

“I want you to,” Cas hovers over the words for a second, trying to pick the right ones, “kiss me.”

“You… want me to kiss you?”

“Yes, but I don’t want you to kiss me, because I want you to kiss me. I want you to kiss me, because you want to kiss me.” Dean seems dumbfounded.

“You sure know how to jump a guy, Cas.” Dean laughs a bit awkwardly and Cas can see how he’s trying to distract him with his words. Cas waits patiently. It takes a while, but his patience pays off.

“Okay.”

“Okay?”

“Yes.”

Cas moves closer until their shoulders are almost touching. Their bodies are turned to each other’s, but Dean’s eyes are shifty and won’t meet his. Cas asks with a low voice:

“Why are you doing this, Dean? I want – I want to hear the words. I want to hear you want to kiss me.”

Dean scrapes his throat and blushes.

“I – I want to kiss you, ‘kay? That good enough for you?”

“Yeah. Yes, that’s very good, Dean.”

 

And though he wants to surge in, he feels like Dean would bolt if he’d do that, so he gently cups Dean’s jaw. He tilts his head just so and locks their eyes. He gives Dean the time to turn away, to back off, but Dean doesn’t so he softly brushes their lips together. Once, twice. Only the third time Dean starts kissing back. Softly, like he doesn’t believe he’s allowed to do this, or perhaps like Cas is breakable and he doesn’t want to crush the angel.

Cas doesn’t really care, because they’re kissing and it’s soft and sweet. Their dry lips are tumbling together and it takes a few tries before Cas feels like he got this.

And it’s nice and warm, but Cas can feel time running through his hands and he wants more. He fidgets and frowns a bit. Dean pulls back and chuckles softly.

“You gotta relax, man.” Dean smoothes the skin on his forehead down and pulls him gently in again. He doesn’t do anything, just rests their foreheads and noses against each other.

 

Every time Cas tries to kiss him again, Dean pulls slightly away and Castiel makes a noise in the back of his throat out of frustration. With one hand at the back of Dean’s neck he makes sure he stays still. He closes the distance, over calculates and their teeth clash, but it doesn’t matter, because it’s still good.

Cas bites on Dean’s lip for no other reason than that he wants to and it elicits this delicious sound out of Dean that he has no choice but to do it again. Dean licks his lips and he opens up and suddenly he’s got Dean’s tongue in his mouth and then his tongue is in Dean’s mouth.

Cas is relearning the lay-out of Dean’s mouth, this time so much more physical than last time, when he rebuilds Dean’s body and it feels _great_.

He groans and Dean groans and it’s an orchestra of sounds coming out of their throats, spurring both of them on. Their hands are awkwardly petting each other, Cas’s because so far he has only seen this and he has no idea if he’s doing it alright. Dean’s are uncertain, like he doesn’t know what to touch, used to a different type of body.

 

They shift and Castiel’s erection brushes Dean’s thigh and Dean stiffens up and pushes him away. Cas has got one hand in Dean’s neck and the other fisting the lapels of his shirt and Dean’s hands are resting on his hips and Dean isn’t letting go yet, which is good, because that means he isn’t panicking and Cas can breathe a bit more easier.

Dean is panting and the black of his eyes have swallowed the green parts mostly. He shakes his head, huffs a laugh and says:

“Slow down there, cow boy. I’m not saying not ever, I’m just saying not now, okay? Can you give me some time, to get used to this.” Dean gestures between the two of them.

Dean’s not saying ‘no’ and if Cas says ‘yes’, maybe there is this tiniest chance he’ll get to kiss him again. Of course he says yes.

“I don’t have time, Dean, but I’ll give it to you.”

 

He wants Dean to understand how important this is, how important Dean is to Cas. Dean looks at Cas with relief in his eyes, but also with understanding and Cas smiles.

Dean slowly leans in again and kisses him chastely.

“Okay then.” He hesitates.

“Would you mind if I sleep here? No funny business, just sleeping. It’s been a long drive and I’m tired and it’d be great to just –” he cuts himself off after realising he’s rambling and looks hopefully at Cas, who just nods gravely and says:

“Of course, Dean.”

 

He crawls under the blankets and holds one end invitingly up. Dean joins him and it’s a bit of awkward shuffling before they find a position that works for them, with Dean using Cas’s head as a pillow.

Cas is petting Dean’s hair and whispers that Dean should try to sleep. Dean nods against his chest and says something about calling Sam in the morning and Cas tries to kiss the top of Dean’s head, but he can’t, so he grabs his hand and somehow manages to press a kiss into it.

Dean’s asleep within a couple of minutes.


	17. Chapter 17

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, there's a bit of homophobia coming from Dean's side of the story.
> 
> Also I should clarify that I think Meg's an awesome character, which doesn't always come through, because of jealous!Dean. I hope that I clear that up with this chapter.
> 
> Dean's POV

When Dean wakes up, he’s curled into Cas. Cas is sleeping deeply and Dean tries to squirm out of his hold. Cas doesn’t wake up so he considers it a win.

It’s strange to see Cas so… vulnerable. He’s not supposed to have ‘human weaknesses’ as most angels would call it, Dean supposes. He isn’t quite sure if it’s the marks on the walls or whatever fucking Lucifer is doing with his brains, grace, whatever, but he hopes it isn’t the latter.

Knowing his luck, it is probably the latter.

 

He needs to call Sammy, but first breakfast; he needs coffee and food if he’s going to think about his _feelings_.

He opens the door sees Meg waiting for him with a smirk. He figures he owes her nothing, so he just nods towards her and walks to the cafeteria.

It’s hospital, so of course the eggs taste like nothingness, the toast like cardboard and the coffee is crap, but hey, he’s got some food in him now, and caffeine is caffeine, shitty or not.

 

While he eats he thinks about what happened last night. Because that was fucking weird.

Not necessarily a bad kind of weird, might even come close to a good kind of weird and hell yeah, the kissing part was awesome. It was just the not-kissing part he was stuck on.

So Cas kissed him last night. _Lemme repeat that:_ Cas _kissed me last night_. CAS, friggin’ Castiel, angel of the Lord, kissed  him last night.

His brain still has trouble catching on, and all he can feel is being soaked in some kind of wave of awe or dazedness. It's a pretty awesome feeling, but he can also feel the panic striking up and he tries as long as possible to hang on to the feeling-like-drifting-on-sea part, and less to the fast-heartbeat/dry-throat/stomach-trying-to-force-itself-out-of-body-through-esophagus part.

Yeah, that somehow doesn’t work to well and within seconds he is sweating and thinking:

‘Cas, kissed me. Oh my God, Cas kissed me. FUCK. Okay, okay, calm down.’

This had been what he wanted, right? With all those hunts he got distracted when things reminded him of Cas and then there is The Siren Accident and he does NOT want to go there right now.

 

So maybe he is a bit into dick. That could happen, right? Sometimes guys just like another guy, in a total manly and not gay-way. And it was not like there were any other guys he had ever been attracted to ~~like Dr. Sexy~~ , so it probably could be a Castiel thing. Technically, angels don’t even have genders, so it isn’t like he is gay or anything. And if he sticks to topping or whatever it’s called in the gay-culture ~~maybe he could let Cas ride him a little. If he, you know, wanted to~~ , he’d still be straight.

 

Except for the part where he wants Cas to put his big, fat cock all the way up Dean’s ass.

He lets his head fall into his hands with a groan. _Yeah, totally not gay, dude._

He can hear the chair across of his being shoved back over the linoleum floor.

“Deano.”

“Meg. Fuck off.”

“No can do, Winchester. I was kinda hoping you would tell me all the juicy details of what our angel is like in bed.”

He lifts his head off his hands for a second to glare at her.

“I don’t know.”

“Oh, like you weren’t fucking the hell out of him last night, and don’t think I couldn’t hear. When I peeked in this morning I saw you two adorable puppies cuddle. It almost made me puke.”

“We weren’t cuddling.”

“Really, because it kind of seems right up your ally.” Dean grumbles.

“Like you probably guessed, I am not sitting at this table, because of your dazzling looks and amazing personality. You owe me, remember and I want you to do me a favour. I want you to get up right now, get your ass into Cas’s room and kiss him breakfast and feed him awake or whatever young love does these days.”

Dean looks around them and hisses at Meg:

“Could you talk any louder?”

“Sure. DEAN WINCHESTER IS GAY!!!”

Dean’s eyes widen and he shrinks. People look at them, confused, and when nothing exiting happens, they look away again. Some older people shake their heads, someone looks outraged, but nothing really happens.

“Look, they don’t care and those that do, well… You beat Lucifer, do you really think a bunch of homophobic assholes is going to be able to harm you in any way, especially with Cas being your personal guardian angel?”

“I am not gay.”

“No, you moron, it’s called bisexuality. There are people on this world who like more than one gender, it exists, it’s a goddamn miracle.”

 

Meg falls silent for a little while before she asks:

“Why didn’t you piss your pants yesterday?”

“Because Cas was a little busy kissing the ever-loving fuck out of me, so I couldn’t be too concerned with technicalities.”

Meg just grins.

“I knew it. Did you ever stop to think that maybe Castiel is an angel, and therefore knows better than any human or ex-human – that would be me – if this thing is or isn’t allowed? And maybe, if he did kiss you that he either A) doesn’t care and is willing to sacrifice everything for you or B) it really doesn’t matter with whom you tango between the sheets. I am going to give you a third option, which is C) maybe you shouldn’t be discussing this with his first kiss and force of evil, but rather with your angel-toy. And perhaps a final D), because I am in a giving mood today; grow the fuck up, Dean Winchester and go find yourself some balls. This is a one in a million lives opportunity, actual match made in heaven and you’re wasting it and let it slip away. Stop being a fucking idiot!”

She gives Dean some time to think and Dean is grateful, but also a little suspicious.

“Why are you being so nice?”

“I’m not so sure you’ve got the right description,” Meg huffs a small laugh.

“I’m pretty sure I do.”

“Because I’m selfish, Dean. Because I like that stupid angel and I like seeing him happy and I’ve never been one to deny myself the simple pleasures of life. Your gay-panic is standing in the way of my happiness and I can’t have that.”

Dean frowns.

“Sounds like I’m not the only one who’s having identity problems.”

“Sharing ‘n caring hour is over. Go call your big brother, I know you want to, and tell him the big, bad demon said ‘hi’, and that he should come over some time. It’d be fun to pester him some more and get into his long hair.”

“I keep telling the kid, he needs to cut it, but he just won’t listen.”

“Yeah, yeah, just hurry the fuck up, you’re wasting my me-time.”

 

 

Dean walks away and calls Sammy. His brother picks up on the second ring.

“Hey…”

“Yeah, everything’s fine…”

“Cas is okay, too…”

“That’s why I called, I’m not going to come back for a little while…”


	18. Chapter 18

When Dean re-enters Cas’s room, he’s still asleep.

Or, maybe not…

Cas inhales deeply, scrunches up his face and cracks open one eye. He’s not awake enough to be cautious with what he says.

“You were gone…”

“Yeah, I got you some breakfast,” Dean says and he puts the tray down on Cas’s nightstand.

 

Cas looks adorable: half-asleep, hair sticking in every direction.

“Look, Cas, I’m not used to… Well, doing stuff with men, you know. And I, uhh…”

“You want to take it ‘slow’,” Cas says.

Though Cas doesn’t take his arms out of his warm nest of blankets, the quotation marks are almost palpable in the air alongside the tension. There’s an awkward silence before Dean hunches his shoulders up and says:

“Yeah.”

He’s lying, though. He doesn’t know what he wants, and yet that’s not entirely true either; he knows he wants Cas, but he has been looking the other way for too long, whenever a guy walked by. He doesn’t know if he can break through that habit.

He only ever let himself have the little things, like Doctor Sexy, MD, slowing his pace slightly down if he passed a balletshop and the memory of that one night with Rhonda Hurley.

~~He allowed himself Cas.~~

He couldn’t let himself have the luxury to do more than just look; he had a little brother to raise. Dad wouldn’t be happy if Sam came home suddenly wanting to dance (not that he could have if he had wanted to. They simply did not have the money).

 

It’s funny how after seven years after putting his old man six feet underground, he’s still seeking for his approval, though it’ll gain him nothing and only hold him back.

“Dean?” Cas says apprehensively, because Cas has always been fine-tuned with his emotions. Dean has stopped wondering a long time ago if he was using his mojo or just being Cas, the weird angel, who could always tell when the righteous man was about to have a mental break down.

 

(Oh.)

(After last night’s confession, it would actually make sense why Cas always seemed to be watching him closely and knowing what was going on with him. He never even _considered_ that.)

 

He’s staring at the wall, counting the dirty spots; he is in no mood to have the “I had a miserable childhood and my dad was just never there when I needed him” talk with Cas right now, partly because he just _doesn’t want to_ – and yes he’s allowed to act like a moody teenager –, partly, because it isn’t true, not completel

John taught them the important things, like how to take care of themselves, how to shoot and clean a shotgun.

He just was never around to see the drawings that Sam made of them and the Impala ~~he also never saw how Dad started to disappear in those drawings and how Dean filled up the empty spots~~ , or to be there on school meetings to hear about Sam getting straight A’s or to listen to Sam enthusiastically tell about lawyers and Stanford and How Awesome Would It Be If Sam Could Go There?-s.

And he gets it, okay? They were just some kids, they weren’t a thousand people or a city or whatever, there were just two of ’em. ~~But i~~ ~~t would have been nice…~~

 

It would have been nice if he’d been there more often.

 

Dean scoffs at himself. _So what if he’d have come home more often, do you think that’d have made you happy? No, it wouldn’t have been often enough. You would have wanted more; you would have wanted him to hold your hand through every second of every minute of every day. Do you think that would have made you happy?_

_~~Just think of the people that would have died without Dad’s help. Think of the people that have died, because he spent time with you.~~ _

Yeah, he should stop trying to turn back time. That can only end badly, in his experience.

 

Dean realises they’ve been silent for some time now and that Cas doesn’t know what to say. It’s not awkward though. Finally Cas opens his mouth, like he figured out what he wants to say and then closes it again.

 

“Is it John?”

And Dean wants to laugh at the irony in life, at just how well they fit together. Dean just _knows_ the first time Cas opened his mouth, heaven was on his mind. Then Cas figured Dean probably wouldn’t have problems with Cas's Dad, but like Cas, rather with his own, than God in general.

Dean huffs out a breath and says: “Yeah, it is.”

Cas nods like he gets everything even though Dean said nothing.

 

Dean thinks “what the hell,” and figures 32 is a good age as any to start rebelling against your parents as any.

He walks over Cas, grips the lapels of his stupid trench coat and pecks him lightly on the lips. Cas’s eyes pop and his eye cross, because they’re that close. Dean can feel one corner of his mouth tug up.

They lock eyes and it’s a couple of minute before Dean finally whispers the thank you he’s been meaning to say.

“For what?” Cas whispers back and it’s weird to hear that gravelly voice so soft.

Dean says the first thing that comes to his mind and groans internally afterwards for the huge chick flick moment.

“For wanting me here.”

The grin that Cas aims at him, starts in his eyes, spreading slowly like a wave over Cas’s face, ending in a big, gummy smile and wrinkles in the corners of his eyes, is totally worth it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please feel free to leave some comments behind on your thoughts :)


	19. Chapter 19

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow, 20k. I usually give up somewhere through 10k. Thank you so much for spending some time reading my stupid story, it means a lot to me!

Dean still has fisted Cas’s coat and he feels weird about the smile gracing Cas’s features: no one should look at Dean Winchester with that much happiness.

He quickly pulls Cas in again and kisses him slow and lazily. Dean can feel Cas’s muscles jump underneath his clothes wherever his hands wander (his chest, shoulders, neck, upper arms – all nice and firm, Dean can practically feel the power and strength running underneath the vulnerable skin that protects him from Cas’s true form burning his eyes out) and Dean knows Cas is holding back, because Dean asked him to.

He’s amazed by his friend.

 

He licks and bites Cas’s lips until they’re soft and pliant beneath his and only then he slips his tongue inside. First a quick tease, then he languidly starts exploring Cas’s mouth.

Fuck morning breath: Dean literally doesn’t care. He takes his time. Who knows when the next time is he’ll be allowed a kiss like this one?

With a sigh Dean finally lets Cas go. He straightens Cas’s jacket and runs his hands through Cas’s hair to make it appear neater. He thinks the sex hair is a better look on him, though, so he messes his hair up again.

 

Cas isn’t looking at him anymore like the sun shines out of his ass, so Dean feels better. No one has ever looked at him like that. Lissa smiled it him, but it wasn’t like Cas’s my-whole-soul/grace-is-alight-because-of-you smile.

Thank fuck none of his one-nightstands never looked at him like Cas does, ‘cause that would have been awkward as hell.

His only other fling that came close to relationship stuff is Cassie and theirs was more of a ‘fierce and quickly dying out’ than ‘slow burning love’.

It terrifies him to see Cas look at him like that with so much emotion written on his face, like he’s wearing his heart for anyone to see.

 

The other person who looks at him like that is Sam, usually after he has just come back from the dead. Sam mostly looked then like he was happy and relieved and worried (their stayin’ alive plans have a way of backfiring).

Cas’s face is blank except for an all-consuming happiness and – dare he say it – love. Dean shudders at the thought that Castiel could come to love such a pitiful creature like himself. He’s awed and in wonder and honoured and so incredibly fucking scared.

Whether of breaking his own heart or Cas’s or just the hugeness of the falling in love that Cas’s eyes are promising, he doesn’t know.

 

Cas’s eyes glaze over and he blinks a couple of times, seeming confused.

“Dean?” Dean has been getting better in recognising symptoms.

“Hey, Cas, why dontcha sit down? Do you want some water? How much do you remember?”

“My grace feels wrong. Why are there angel sigils on the wall?”

“Yeah, I know,” Dean swallows the babe that threatens to fall out, back down. This Cas doesn’t know about them and Dean doesn’t know how Cas feels about petnames.

“Temporal memory loss. We had to make sure you couldn’t hurt yourself or anyone else. Here, I’ll give you some proof I’m at least a hot looking piece of imagination and not a shapeshifter or something.” Dean grabs the bag lying nearby for this exact purpose and goes through the motions: knife, Borax, holy water, salt (just for Cas’s peace of mind).

“See? I’m me. You need anything else?”

“Why are you being so nice?”

Dean doesn’t fight his impulse to kiss Cas.

“That’s why, hot stuff.” He winks at Cas, not caring he sounds like a bad porno.

“You’ve got much to look forward to.”

 

“So now what?” Cas asks.

“Now we wait ‘til ya get your memory back.”

“I changed my mind, Dean.”

“Oh?”

“I do need something.”

“Well, what would that be, Cas?” Dean smirks.

“You said I had something to look forward to. I didn’t completely understand what you meant. I was hoping you could explain it to me again.” Cas licks his lips and adds:

“Unless you’d rather wait, of course.”

Flirtatious Cas. Dean grins and decides he likes it.

“Oh, well, I guess a little explaining wouldn’t hurt.”


	20. Chapter 20

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm pretty tired, so the amount of spelling/grammar mistakes might be a little bit higher than usual (I have no beta, so all mistakes are my own, too).

Dean kisses Cas’s forehead. Cas is in that state between awake and asleep and he makes a little sound at the back of his throat.

Cas is like a cat, curling into his personal space heater (a.k.a. Dean), rubbing his body against Dean’s and making little noises when he likes something.

He’s also stolen all the blankets, not caring that half of Dean’s body is exposed to the cold air and Dean is freezing his ass off.

Cas quite likes the little place he’s made for himself on top of Dean’s arm. Dean can’t move his right arm, nor can he feel anything, and whenever Cas moves his shoulder starts tingling.

Yeah, Cas is a greedy son of a bitch. Somehow Dean can’t bring himself to care.

He kisses Cas’s forehead again. No reaction this time. He’s hoping to wake Cas like this, knows from experience it’s one of the best ways to start the day. He wants to give this experience to Cas

 

Cas is an angel and he doesn’t think Meg treated Cas in the way Dean wants to see Cas being treated (that’s okay, though. He’s starting to see that Meg loves Cas in her own special way. She took care of him when Dean was still too much of an idiot to see Cas deserved better than what he was giving. He’s eternally grateful for whatever Cas received from Meg at that time. Though they’ll never be besties, Dean thinks Meg will start to grow on him in a while… very much like mold).

He places sloppy kisses all over Cas’s face, murmuring for him to wake up.

He’s getting better at this. He’s not freaking out as much anymore at the thought that he could kiss his best friend/angel/man. He’s getting better at kissing Cas. It feels like a natural extension of their friendship; Cas feels right in his arms, like he belongs.

The chaste kisses they share are like showing affection, like bumping shoulders, only more intense. He doesn’t know what to do with the heated kisses, the ones that make him feel hot all over, and make his dick jump to attention.

 _Fuck him ‘til he can’t see straight anymore,_ his brain helpfully supplies. And great, now that image made him half-hard and it feels like his… (Angel? Boyfriend?) whatever is having a morning wood, too.

He didn’t want to have one of those mornings; he is _not ready_ to have one of those mornings, goddammit! He just wanted to kiss Cas awake and bask in the fact that he can do that now, not dry hump him and try to deal with not being the only one in this relation or whatever this is, who has a dick.

 

He moves his left hand, the one that Cas is not lying on top of, and moves it to the erection that is digging in his hip. His hand stops however when his mind starts screaming at him: “GAY!” and “What the fuck do you think you’re doing with almost touching some guy’s cock?”

Dean defends his actions with an “It’s not some guy, it’s Cas.”

“So what?”

Dean squeezes his eyes shut. He really wants to know what Cas feels like, he wants to know what kind of face Cas makes when he reaches orgasm, what kind of sounds he’ll make.

He moves his hand again, his aim a little off; he finds a hip.

His fingers follow the tented material that is Cas’s PJ bottoms (Cas has actual pyjama’s now) and find Cas’s straining dick. His fingers close around him, tracing him. A little firmer, now.

He uses the palm of his hand to rub at Cas’s cock, quickly building speed.

Cas groans and Dean looks up at his face. Cas’s hips soon enough move on instinct, fucking into Dean’s cupped hand.

Dean smiles, kisses Cas’s cheek, then the corner of his mouth.

 

Cas’s eyes open to a slit. Dean whispers:

“Hey. Do you want me to stop?”

Cas’s mouth falls open and he puffs little breath out. He licks his lips and shakes his head.

“Good,” Dean says smugly and he takes his hand away.

 

Cas whines and Dean one-handed tries to push his pants down. Cas gets the message soon enough and impatient hands bat his’ away. It goes a lot faster that way and Dean chuckles at Cas.

He pushes his hand in Cas’s underwear and starts jacking him off, slow and sure.

 

It feels weird, another man’s dick in his hands, so similar; smooth, but hard under the velvet skin.

He goes through the familiar motions; hand twisting under the head, thumb collecting precum to make the slide down go smoother. It’s also very different, because it’s Cas, not his own cock and Jesus, He’s Jacking Off Cas, Holy Fuck!

One hand is clasping his forearm and Cas’s eyes are screwed tight. Dean lightly runs his nails along the underside of Cas’s erection just to see if he’ll like it and Cas sets his nails in Dean’s arm and huffs and does a full body shudder. Bingo. He does it again and Cas groans this time and Dean smiles, liking how responsive Cas is.

He speeds up and Cas makes a needy noise in his throat, like he wants to talk, but something is holding the sound back.

Cas cracks his eyes open and looks at him out the corner of his eyes.

If Dean hadn’t already been able to tell from the tension in Cas’s body, he would have known right now that Cas is about to come.

  
Dean bites Cas’s shoulder and that’s all she wrote.

Dean watches with rapt enrapture how Cas’s body draws one taught line, his eyes rolling back. Dean places a single kiss on the bite (and ignores the little voice that says: “Mark. You’re marking him as your own.”)

 

He jacks Cas through his orgasm, feeling wetness catch the back of his hand, until Cas starts to hiss, because his dick gets too sensitive.

Dean watches Cas’s muscles relax all at once and Cas sighs, letting his body fall on the matrass as a boneless heap. He waits ‘till Cas comes to his sense again before he says:

“You’ve got a bit of a strong grip, buddy.”

He looks down at where the blankets hide how Cas is digging his fingernails into Dean, similar to how Cas pulled Dean out of perdition, Dean suspects.

“Oh. Appologies.” Cas quickly retracts his claws and Dean pecks Cas on his lips.

“Good?”

“Perfect,” Cas answers with his I-dragged-my-vocal-chords-through-three-layers-of-gravel voice, and kisses him again.

Kissing turns to making out and when Cas’s hands start creeping below waistline areas, Dean bats them away.

“Let me...” Cas starts, and Dean shakes his head. He tries to smile relaxed and says:

“It’s okay, dud, I did that for you, no reciprocation needed.”

Cas says way too seriously:

“I see.”

And this is why he doesn’t keep any secrets from Cas; Cas can always see right through him somehow, and Dean smiles like he isn’t freaking out. And then Cas kisses him and all Dean can think is;

“Thank god, that of all stupid angels to come get me, he sent me this one,” because Cas doesn’t ask any questions, he just gets it. Dean might love him a little for it.

 

Or,

Ya know,

Like, a lot.


	21. Chapter 21

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was going to be a chapter with plot, but the boys seem to want to hang out and enjoy each other's presence. 
> 
> I'll try to get somewhere with the story tomorrow, but I can't promise anything, as that was something I was trying with the previous chapter, too.

A couple of days have passed and all is peaceful. Dean is happy; he hasn’t felt this content in a long while. Spending time with Cas… it’s relaxing, like taking some time off.

They are watching Doctor Sexy, MD, together, Cas propped up against him. Cas’s fingers play with his, their hands laying on his chest. ~~Dean doesn’t think how cutesy couple-y they look nopenopenope~~.

Normally Dean wouldn’t do this, but this is the latest episode, one he hasn’t seen yet and Dean isn’t about to give up spending time with his… Cas, or miss the new episode.

 

Dean had soon enough found out Doctor Sexy and Cas didn’t go well together. Cas overanalysed the characters, the plotline and Dean, for liking the show, which made Dean uncomfortable with how close he hit home.

Whenever the good doctor came up with a cure for an ill patient, Cas would get confused and ask why he didn’t use a [difficult-Latin-word-that-Dean-had-never-heard-of-and-had-no-clue-of-what-it-meant-or-did].

This always ends in four different situations:

  1.       Dean, stupid, little Dean with his stupid, little GED, would ask Cas what kind of things the thing does, and Cas goes all medical on him and before Dean knows it, he is incredibly turned on and **_BAM_** **_(fireworks ‘n shit)_** the episode would be over, Dean is carrying a hard-on and a lot more hickeys than at the beginning of the episode. (Dean would blow Cas, but after a failed attempt, which ended in a freak out and tears – both from Dean’s side, if you really must know – they’d mutually agreed on waiting before giving it a second try);
  2.       Cas would space out and tell Dean about how he is awestruck by humanity. Mankind; without grace or the natural ability to heal others, still trying to and succeeding, finding clever ways to evade the rules of nature, help one another and push Death a little back. A small victory for all it counts. Those speeches always make Dean a tiny bit misty-eyed and remind him why he ~~lov~~ likes Cas so very much; because Cas  cares. This results in Dean being distracted and unable to finish his inane series;
  3.       Cas and Dean would get in an argument. (“I don’t understand; why does that man have a gun?” “For plot-reasons, Cas.” “That doesn’t explain anything.” “No, it’s important; otherwise we wouldn’t get to see Dr. Sexy’s improvising-skills.” “I fail to see why that would require a gun. Do you think he is a hunter?” “Oh for fuck’s sake, he’s just a sicko who has a gun on him, because he likes to shoot people in hospitals.” “Why –” “Goddammit, Cas!” “Don’t blaspheme, Dean.”)
  4.       Cas would ask why they didn’t use some archaic method and Dean would be left to explain that, no they hadn’t used bloodletting in centuries as a valid remedy against fevers. No, blood transfusions aren’t the same thing. Yes, the doctors did know about blood types and they could also test blood for diseases and viruses. And Cas would get worried about doctors not knowing stuff or asking Dean questions he didn’t know the answer to. Dean would go to the library and get Cas medical textbooks, which Cas would devour. They always found themselves looped either to situation 1, or 2 after Cas read one of the books.



Overall it is an incredibly frustrating process (except for situation 1, Dean likes situation 1, but he wouldn’t get any further on his show, which sucks ass).

He has promised Cas, however, that if he’s quiet, Dean’ll reward him with a hand job. Cas hasn’t said anything for the past half hour, except for small, tired sighs, letting Dean know how excruciating he finds this.

In general, Cas just snuggles up with Dean and presses tiny kisses to his fingers, which is surprisingly relaxing.

 

His phone starts vibrating in his pocket and Dean checks caller-ID. He pauses the episode (thank god he recorded it) and kisses Cas on his hair, saying:

“Sorry, I have to take this.”

As soon as he is out of Cas’s room, he picks up.

 

“Hiya, Sammy.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, so, minor cliff-hanger (sorry!). Nothing you can't handle, I hope...


	22. Chapter 22

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I kind of threw super-hearing in the basket of Demon powers, so Meg could hear Dean and Sam's conversation...

“Hey. How’s Cas.”

“He’s great, man. It looks like he’s getting better; less memory stuff. His brother isn’t paying him any visitors, so that’s a win in my book.”

“That’s… That’s good.” The relief is audible and Dean is reminded that Cas is Sam’s friend, too.

“So, uhh, how’ve you been? How’s the case?”

“I’m fine, don’t worry about me. Case is going more difficult than I expected; I thought I was dealing with one demon, turns out there were two. The first one bruised my wrist and gave me a black eye. He’s dead now. The other one is hiding.”

“Need a hand?”

“No. God, no. You stay where you are, Dean. Cas needs you more than I do.” There's something in Sam's voice...

“There’s something you’re not telling me.”

“Yeah,” Sam scrapes his throat, “I didn’t get the oldest son inside the salt-line. The dad rescued him and got killed in front of his family by the demon that got away. The other one was distracting me, so I couldn’t get to them in time.

“It seemed like the demons were waiting for me. Do you think Meg…”

Dean looks at Meg, who is sitting in the corner of the room with a magazine. She is ignoring him, even though he knows she is listening in.

“I didn’t tell her where you are. Besides, she’s not _that_ stupid.”

Meg looks up at that and throws a saucy wink his way, before continuing to pretend-reading.

 

There’s a tense silence, the guilt weighing down on Sammy. Dean wants to take it away, but knows he can’t and even if he could, still wouldn’t. He needs to trust Sam and let him carry his own weight. Sam’d appreciate that more than Dean babying him.

He can’t help but feel guilty himself, though. ~~Perhaps, if he had been there… They could have saved him, spare the family the horror of seeing their loved one brutally slaughtered right in front of them. Maybe Sammy wouldn’t have gotten hurt.~~ Sam is right when he says he can handle it, because Dean knows he can. Doesn’t mean Dean has to like it.

 

“Sammy, you did the best you could –”

“Well, my best wasn’t good enough.”

“Yeah, I know, but there’s nothing you can change about that.”

“You think I don’t know that?”

“At least you got the others out. You just put that anger in killing the damn bastard, ‘kay? You sure you don’t need me there?”

“I’m fine. You spend some time with your angel-boyfriend, I’ll survive without you for a couple of days.”

Damn him! Damn Sam and his stupid instinct and their almost creepy mental-brother-link that makes them able to smell from five miles away that the other is in trouble.

Damn everything to fucking hell and back again!

“Dean?” _Pull yourself together._

“Yeah, I’m still here.” His voice is a little hoarse.

“You know I was teasing you, right?”

“Right.”

“Dean, what’s going on?” Sam sounded worried now (and angry, ‘cause that’s the only way Winchesters can express their feelings).

“So, uhh, about the boyfriend thing? That might not be as presumptive as true.”

“Presumptive? Using big words now, Dean?” Sam smirks.

“Cas has one of those word-of-the-day-calendars.” Of course he has them, it’s fucking Cas. Dean’s got no clue why he would need one, seeing as he has a fucking dictionary downloaded in his giant, angel brain, but hey, each their own, right?

“And you actually read them? God, you’re so smitten.”

“It gets boring, dude. The guy’s got to sleep sometimes.”

“You tell yourself whatever will make you feel better.”

 

“You don’t seem so surprised.”

“Surprised?” Sam sniggers at him. _Bitch_. “Man, I’m surprised it took you this long to pull your heads out of your asses. It was almost sad to see you two make gooey eyes at each other.”

“You mean you knew?”

“Hell yeah, I knew. I mean anyone with eyes could see. Anyone without eyes could see it. Pam asked me if you guys had something after she got blind.”

“Not everyone knew.”

“Pretty much everyone.”

“I didn’t.”

 

Silence. Dean can feel anger bubbling under his skin, almost like it’s waiting to burst him open and splatter the walls with a fine layer of Dean-shake.

“Maybe if someone had clued me in, maybe –”

“Dean, the only way I could have been any clearer in hinting you, is by hiring a billboard that said: ‘Castiel, angel of the Lord, wants to fuck Dean Winchester’s brains out’.”

“That might have been helped.” “Everyone knew! Zachariah, Meg, Crowley. It was so glaringly obvious we all assumed you knew, even the guys on our side.”

It’s quiet before Dean finally asks:

“Crowley?”

“Yeah, man. Remember when he was saying to Cas he could smell the Impala on him?”

“I thought he was making gun of Cas having now personal space.”

“He only does that around you.”

“Oh.”

“You know, I always thought that was why Pam kissed you.”

Sam sounds sour. He gets it; can’t be fun to watch the chick that likes you turn her ministrations on your older brother.

But yeah he had been wondering about that as well.

“I guess it was an act of revenge; getting back at the angel who burned her eyes out by kissing the guy he liked. It sounds petty, doesn’t it? Maybe she didn’t, I don’t know.”

“Huh. I never looked at like that.”

“I know you didn’t,” Sam says appeasing.

“Listen, I’ve got to go, you just keep Cas company. I’ll call you in a couple of days, see how you’re doing. I’ll deal with things on my end. You think you can do that?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm going to take a mini break, because my life is just kind of busy right now. I'll try to update Sunday or Monday.


	23. Chapter 23

“Hey.”

Dean walks into the room, not suspecting anything to be wrong. Cas is sitting on the bed, with his eyes closed, legs crossed. He looks like the picture of peace.

Dean smiles to himself. He can kiss Cas now. He’s allowed to do that. So he does.

In four quick steps he reaches Cas’s bed, facing him. He kisses the lips that are chapped and rough, but still manage to feel soft and delicate.

Dean smiles again and swallows the soft sound of surprise that falls out of Cas’s mouth. He licks Cas’s bottom lip, a request to open up more and let him in.

Two strong hands grip at his shoulders and everything is going _exactly_ as Dean wants it to go and then he’s airborne for a moment.

 

Dean wonders if this what flying feels like and if so, why would Cas like it that much, when he can feel his stomach lurching.

He thinks that maybe that’s why Cas likes transporting his brother and him, because he wants to share what flying feels like to him.

He asks himself why he’s fallen, or rather, what the cause of his fall is. Because all reason seems to lead to Cas being the most obvious cause and that would be weird.

That would mean Cas isn’t okay with them – whatever _them_ is – and Cas was the person who suggested they’d start in the first place.

 

Cas pushing him away means Cas is not okay with him and that hurts. It scares Dean how much it hurts – almost as much as making Lissa forget him – because that means Cas is everything Dean feared him to be.

It gives Cas more power over Dean than he’d ever willingly give anyone.

 

All he can do is stare up at Cas, eyes wide, jaw slack and no means of defending himself; he doesn’t want to hurt Cas in his full human state.

The pain that pierces through him when he puts his foot beneath him to catch his fall and twists his ankle doesn’t even register, nor does his ass hitting the ground.

 

Cas is rapidly backing off, looking scared and angry at the same time. Dean can only dumbfoundedly ask:

“Cas?”

“Dean, I don’t… I can’t remember what happened.”

“Oh.” Dean swallows.

He quickly explains what happened. When he finishes, Cas looks like he has a lot to go over – he always does after they have The Talk. Dean was getting used to only a-couple-of-days blackouts, nowhere even near this scale.

“I think I’d like you to leave.”

 

Dean tries not to let his disappointment show and turns to leave.

“Wait.”

Dean’s actually pathetic enough that his eyes flood and he has to squeeze them tight shut so Cas won’t see unshed tears of relief when he turns.

“Yeah?”

“You said this is a hospital.”

“I did.”

“Does that mean they have a priest?”

“Yeah.”

 

Dean mentally slaps himself for thinking that Cas was gonna ask him to stay.

“I can get him for you.”

“That would be appreciated. Thank you, Dean.”

“No problem, dude, that’s what friends are for.”

The words leave a bitter taste in his mouth.


	24. Chapter 24

As soon as he leaves, Meg calls him closer with a:

“Hey, Dean-o.”

He ~~sulkily~~ walks over to her.

“Lover-boy wanted a priest, didn’t he? And don’t you lie; deceive isn’t a good look on a righteous man.”

“Ha ha.”

“Well aren’t you in luck this day? Yours truly is willing to get your holy man, if that means she can get out of being subjected to your manpain.”

“Really?”

“That sounds suspiciously like you don’t trust me.”

“That’s ‘cause I don’t.”

“I’m hurt, Winchester, right here in my heart,” Meg sneers with one hand tapping her chest.

“Can’t you just cut the crap?” Dean sighs. “Why are you doing this?”

“Well, I was gonna do it out of the goodness of my heart, before you trampled all over it,” Dean glares at her, “but mostly because you two are worse than that damn hospital programme you always watch and there might be a cute nurse working close to the priest’s office.” Meg shrugs.

“And that’s it?”

“That’s it.”

Meg stares at him and he stares back, refusing to back down. When it seems like Dean won’t protest anymore, Meg stomps off to get the priest.

 

Soon enough the priest arrives and Dean greets him with a muttered “Father”. The priest quickly rambles off the fake name under which Cas is staying here, asking if this is indeed the room of the man he is looking for. Dean confirms.

He watches the priest go in. He’s everything he expected a man of the cloth to be; neatly trimmed beard that’s greying, crow’s feet at the corners of his eyes, thin golden-rimmed glasses, protruding belly caused by one too many burgers and glasses of beer. He’s the prime example of the fatherly type; righteous and just, with a hint of kindness swirling in the eyes that are hidden by the reflective glass of his spectacles.

Dean thinks that the mentally ill patients would easily give this man their trust and stories. The question is, will Cas?

 

The priest left the door open in a crack, big enough for Dean to listen in. He doesn’t want to betray Cas’s trust, but dammit, Cas is his friend. He thinks that whatever Cas says right now, will give him a clue how to treat him better and how to help give him what he wants. Maybe it’ll come clear how much Cas remembers.

The excuses – for that’s all they are – are enough right now to put his conscience at ease. He shuffles the chair he’s sitting on a little closer to the door, not unlike he’s being Cas’s personal guard dog.

 

He’s been dressing up as priest long enough to know the Catholic rites. He draws comfort from them and Cas’s voice, leaning his head back against the wall.

Cas seems to be confessing, as Dean picks up the familiar:

“Please forgive me, Father, for I have sinned.”

The priest asks Cas what he has done wrong and Cas… Cas _of course_ says:

“I have lusted after my best friend,” Cas hesitates.

“My male best friend.”

“The young man who sits outside waiting for you?”

“The same.”

Dean closes his eyes and can just see Cas nodding along to what the priest is saying, looking so sincere.

“Can I ask you why you think this is a sin?”

“Does the Bible not say ‘man shall not lay with man’?”

“Does it not say ‘if I have not love, I have nothing’? I feel like you are the last one I should tell.”

“I didn’t say love.”

“But the two of us know that’s what it is. Maybe you should stop using these excuses and hiding behind that old dusty book. God is a living God, my son. Try communicating through first-hand with him and pray instead of second-hand reports. I think you’ll learn something that way.”

“I – thank you. I shall think on it.”

“You do that. Now you’ll have to excuse me, I have other businesses to attend.”

Dean can hear the man’s footsteps stop before they reach the door.

“I shall keep you in my prayers.”

“Thank you, Father.”

 

The priest, this time, does come out.

“You owe me, Dean-o.”

“What?”

“You heard me.”

Meg sighs as she flicks her eyes to black and white again. _Oh_.

“You possessed the body of a priest –”

“Oh, for fuck’s sake, it was for a good cause. I was saving your pathetic love life and you know it, too. I’ll even wipe his memory for you if you insist on being such a prissy.”

“I’m not being a –” Dean splutters.

“Save it. Just say ‘Thank you, Meg,’ so we can all forget about this embarrassing event.”

“Thank you, Meg,” Dean robots.

“Such a well-behaved, good, little puppy, Winchester.” Meg opens her mouth supposedly to exit the meatsuit.

“Wait, where are you going? What am I supposed to do with him?”

“This is a hospital, Dean, what do you think you should do with it?” Meg rolls her eyes and is gone in a black cloud of smoke. Dean shouts after her that he doesn’t want to find any demon casualties or mutilations in the newspaper tomorrow.

Left with no clue whether or not she’s heard him (do demons even have some kind of hearing system when they’re in their smoke form?) Dean kneels next to the priest, checking his pulse.

_Well, he seems to be alive… That’s a good thing, right?_

Dean tries to get his attention by calling out his title and by unsuccessfully trying to remember the priest’s name. Eventually the man wakes up, blinking and groaning and Dean helps him sit.

“Father, are you okay? Do you remember what happened?”

Dean looks at the man, trying to detect if Meg lied.

“I – no… I was just walking, a couple of halls down that way,” the priest points in a vague direction, “and suddenly I’m here, blacked out and lying on the ground.”

“I’m just going to help you sit upright, okay? Then I’m going to look for any of the medic staff. You just hang on tight.”

Everything gets handled quickly after that; Meg was right when she pointed out that this was a hospital. Doctors are nearby and the priest gets help soon enough. Dean can only watch distractedly.

 

He wants to talk to Cas, figure out what he meant when he asked Dean to leave. He wants to ask him where they stand. He above all wants to know if Cas is okay and if he’s hurt or scared.

He doesn’t know if he is welcome or not. He decides to wait, at least until Cas is back on full memory.

It doesn’t matter too much; he’s got a lot to think about.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "man shall not lay with man" Leviticus 18:22  
> "if I have not love, I have nothing" 1 Corinthian 13:2  
> I have twisted the words slightly as Leviticus 18:22 actually says: "You shall not lie with a male as with a woman; it is an abomination."  
> and 1 Corinthian 13:2 says: "And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing."  
> (English standard version).
> 
> Also, I think from a christian view it's a bit harder to say yay or nay to homosexuality, but I didn't want to go into a philosophical discussion about christianity and their opinions, mainly because I didn't feel it would add anything to the plotline. Hopefully I haven't offended anyone.


	25. Chapter 25

Dean waits and Cas calls out:

“Dean? I – I know you’re out there.”

He waits a beat.

“Yeah?”

“I remember again.”

“Okay. Can I… May I come in?”

 

“Yeah.”

 

 

Cas is fidgeting with his hands.

“I’m sorry.”

“Yeah, I know you are.” Dean rubs his mouth. Cas looks at him and Dean can’t stand the expectancy in his eyes.

 

Dean breaks the tension (or does he build it up?) with a:

“I’ve been thinking. I thought we were good. I thought I was… happy,” Dean laughs short and hard, “And then I started thinking, ‘cause you see, I’m never happy. I might be contempt, but happy? No, not me, not a Winchester. So I asked myself why, Cas. Why am I, are we never happy? And then I realised something. I realised how selfish I have been, choosing to stay here, with you. There are people dying out there, Cas, because of me and what I chose. I could have saved them. People will never see their fathers or wives, kids or brothers again, because I holed up in here.

“For all I know my brother’s dying right now, and I’m not there with him.”

“Sam is very competent, I am sure –”

“I’m not doubting his capability of doing the job, but he’s human and humans make mistakes.” Cas’s eyes widen when they pick up the ambiguity of his words.

“What are you saying, Dean?”

“I’m human, too, Cas.

“I’m saying I think I should go back to Sam, see how he’s doing. Check the Impala over and make sure my brother has got a ride instead of a rental or – God forbid – got into his thick head he needs to travel by bus. I think I should get back and do the only thing I’ve ever been taught to do: Saving people, hunting things, the family business.”

“Dean…”

“No, Cas. I made my decision. You just gotta let me go, man.”

“I refuse to give in that easily, Dean Winchester. Why are you doing this? Is it because I hurt you, Dean? Did I scare you? Can you just stop wallowing in self-pity for a second and think about how I felt? Slowly starting to remember me pushing my boyfriend away, remembering what I’ve done and not having any control over it. I’m slowly losing my mind, Dean, any day the person I am now can cease to exist. I need you, don’t you see that?”

“Boyfriends? Is that what you think we are?”

“I don’t know what to think anymore, Dean. I just want you to hold me and tell me everything is going to be okay, but clearly that’s not going to happen.”

“It’s killing me, Cas, seeing you like this. I can’t help you here. I’m useless! There could be books, cases like yours, and I could be doing research right now.”

“You hate doing research.”

“For you I would, Cas, I swear.”

 

Cas looks him up and down, an emotion locked up behind his eyes Dean can’t seem to decipher.

 

“If you could just stop lying to yourself you could see more clearly what’s going on. You have been with one foot out of the door from the very beginning. You’re just scared and running and you can’t even look back to see what you’re leaving behind!

“I love you, Dean Winchester, and we could have something beautiful – we _had_ something beautiful –” Cas turns cold with his next breath, “Well, I guess if you to let it go to waste, that’s your decision to make.”

“Why can’t you see it’s for everyone’s best?”

“Because it’s not. Good luck, Dean, I hope you find what you are looking for.”

“Cas –”

“I’d like you to leave.”

Dean gasps for breath as the full weight of Cas’s words slams into his guts. _The same fucking – of course Cas had to use the same words_. He feels like a fish on the dry, mouth opening and closing, but getting no breath in or a sound out. He feels like he’s been blown out of his natural orbit, like the floor has been swept from underneath him by a meteor called Cas. He makes a sound that sounds pained to his ears, but Cas is with his back to him and he has no clue if he heard him or not.

He swallows, nods to himself ( _he deserved that_ ) and leaves.

 

He pets his Baby, familiarity fills his chest with warmth, but it does nothing to remove the hole in his chest or even shrink it the tiniest bit.

The soothing feeling flees from his grasp too soon and he is left colder than before. He feels like crying. He wants to call Sam, but he feels like his brother would only call him stupid and tell him to get his ass back in that damn hospital. He feels like running back to Cas, burying his head in his neck and weep like a little kid, just beg for forgiveness and promise to never leave again.

But he was right when he told Cas he can’t help or do anything. He can’t help those Cas or all the others who are dying. He can do _nothing_. And he hates feeling like that. He hates feeling like he is some kept boy, good for nothing. He wants to do something, to help.

So he does neither; he doesn’t call Sam, or go back to Cas. He gets in his car, puts in an AC/DC tape and starts the engine. He texts his brother to ask him if he’s still living and where he’s at. And then he starts driving, hoping the clear road will take his mind of the bleeding muscle in his chest, beating a steady ‘C-Cas, C-Cas, C-Cas’.


	26. Chapter 26

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for reading. I realise I'm not doing this enough, thanking you for putting your precious time in reading my little story. I want to say I appreciate all of you; those who've read this from the very beginning, or who dropped in later. 
> 
> I haven't been updating regularly lately, which is something I'm working on. I've been busy lately and this is a short chapter. However, we're nearing the end and I've been grateful for the time you've allowed me to share my words with you.

He’s wrong; the open road doesn’t change things. There’s an itch that won’t fade, no matter how many times he shifts.

His irritation at other drivers spikes and he’s left shouting his indignity at fast moving clunks of metal, that don’t care anyway. He slams his hand against the steering wheel and curses. Mumbling his apologies to Baby, he turns the volume up.

 

It doesn’t drown his anger out.

 

* * *

 

“Hey, Sammy,” Dean says.

“Dean, what happened?”

“Nothing. Don’t worry about it.”

Sam sighs.

 

* * *

 

Cas has no contact with the Winchesters. They’re still on his mind.

He doesn’t know how long it’s been since… anything, because he has no Dean to measure time by. It’s lonely. It’s boring. He pretends, but it doesn’t take his mind of the nothingness around him.

He is disoriented most of the time, fumbling his way along the person he used to be. When he’s not, he’s _everything_ ; fury, angst, self-righteous, crazy. Everything but happy.

 

And so time passes by; Cas riding his ~~emotional~~ rollercoaster, no clue how to get off. Until a Winchester stops it and gives him a grip on events; a date to jot down in his journal if he kept such a thing. He has a way to measure time again, for however brief.

A phone call and it’s not the Winchester he wants.

* * *

 

“Sam.”

“Hey. Are you…?”

“Yes, I’m fine.” The silence that meets him is calling him a liar.

“Is there a reason you called?” The rustle on the other end confirms his diversion was successful.

 

Suddenly Sam sounds like he’s carrying the weight of the world on his back, which, in fact, is not untrue.

“Yeah, Dean has been missing. I wouldn’t have called, but I thought he might be with you.”

“I’m sorry, Sam.”

“Yeah, it’s not your fault. I gotta call –”

“I could help.”

“Do you really think –”

“Yes.” Because Sam is right; he wouldn’t have called, which means he is desperate, which means he needs Cas’s help.

“Okay, fine.”

“Tell me what you know.”


	27. Chapter 27

He had forgotten how bright heaven’s light to an angel’s eye was.

“Castiel, I wasn’t sure you’d show up.” A smug voice calls out behind him. He turns around, facing an angel that has his hands clasped in front of him. He speaks like every word he says carries great meaning.

“Have we met?” What else is there to ask?

“No, I believe not, though you might have heard of me. I am Metatron.”

Castiel stares blankly at him. Metatron sighs.

“The scribe of God?”

He has heard of the scribe. Castiel eyes him warily.

“Who I am, matters not. Far more important, is that I have what you are looking for. If you value the life of your friend, I suggest you follow me.”

He catches the object Metatron throws him. It’s a ring, with the fading impression of Dean’s soul on it. Castiel doesn’t believe it’s something he’d part willingly with.

“Take me to Dean.”

And so he does.

 

They arrive with a white flash of light in a room unknown to Castiel. Dean trashes against his bindings as soon as he sees them, yelling muffled warnings behind a gag.

“What now?” He takes no heed of Dean’s cry for caution. Metatron is standing over Dean. He has his hand on two violently chopped off angel wings, lying next to him.

“Now, you are going to take that lighter, lying next to your feet and get into that circle of holy oil over there – yes, yes, Dean, we know you do not like this idea, but really can you not shut up? You’re giving me a head ache.

“Castiel, I know you are reluctant to give up your powers and hand over your freedom to make sure Dean here lives, but if you could do it this century? I’m sure everyone would just really appreciate that.

“Yes, thank you. If you could please light that oil now? I want you two to know that I am standing here torn apart, not as someone who has come here with a goal tonight, but as a storyteller. Because I can tell you, this story, my story – or perhaps ours? – will be told frequently and long after you’re gone. I am after all the hero and I just can’t seem to figure out if my readers, so to say, or perhaps you would prefer listeners, would rather see me getting on with the storyline, action flashing off the pages, fireworks exploding in the dark of the night.

“But then there is love. In all the great books, it has always been a favoured theme, something to steal away the hearts of my readers, a story worth letting a tear roll down your cheek, an act that will shine a light on the compassion of my character.

“Shall I let my two rivals have their last scene; a tearful goodbye that shows their humane side? Oh what does it matter? Later on, I can always delete this scene and perhaps I will be entertained during this gory task.”

Metatron unties the piece of fabric that prevents Dean from speaking.

 

“Cas! What the hell are you doing here?”

“I’m here to save you.”

“Yeah, we can see how well that worked. You should have walked outta here the second you could.”

“I couldn’t have taken the chance.”

“The chance of what, Cas? Because now, he is not only gonna kill me, he’s gonna kill you, too. Even you should be able to see that. You do, don’t ya?”

Cas smiles.

“If there is the slightest chance that he’ll let you go and will kill me instead, then it will be worth it. You’re worth it.”

Dean opens his mouth to protest, but Metatron rips the back of Dean’s t-shirt open.

“What the –”

“Now be quiet, this will only hurt… well, quite a lot actually. Please don’t stop on my account.” Metatron then proceeds to sow the wings unto Dean’s back.

“Metatron, please, stop! If you continue this, you will kill him.”

“No, it won’t. Trust me.”

Dean is grunting and panting, sweat runs down his face.

“Cas, what is he doing to me?” It then becomes evident to Castiel that Dean can’t see the wings.

“He is sowing angel wings to your back. The residue grace in them is attacking your soul. You won’t be able to survive much longer.”

“Jeez, Cas, don’t sugar coat it, will ya?”

“You are mostly correct, Castiel, except for the part where these wings are nephilim’s and not angels’,” Metatron says.

“I wasn’t aware there were any nephilims left.”

“There aren’t. Not anymore. The last one sacrificed herself for a good cause.”

“Yeah, and what might that good cause be?”

“Patience, Dean, you’ll soon find out.”

 

Cas still isn’t sure what happened. One second he was watching Dean suffering through Metatron useless tortures and the next he was standing in a too bright office across a woman.

“Hello, Castiel.”

“Who are you? Where are we?”

“I am Naomi. We’re in a part of Heaven in which time stands mostly still. We don’t have much time, however, before the others will notice you’re gone.

“Metatron is planning on ruling heaven and all the angels. He has found an ancient spell that will help him achieve his goal. Dean has been hit by a cupid’s arrow in purgatory and he has the blood of a nephilim on his back. He is planning on using the thread on Dean’s life to force you to take Dean as a vessel. Then he is going to kill you and Dean, which will activate the spell.

“We found out about Metatron’s plan several months ago and in that time we have come up with our own plan. We have found the antichrist. If we get enough ‘juice’ we can create a loop that will reset time to just before the cupid’s arrow leaves his bow.”

“How do we get enough juice?”

“You will need to kill yourself. The power that comes free with your death will be enough set the plan in action.”

“And I will stay alive?”

“Yes.”

“I don’t understand. I was in a circle of holy oil, how did you get me here?”

“That was simple enough. Just like I summoned you here, I summoned the oil here and changed it with normal oil.”

“Why did you say we didn’t have much time?”

“I assumed you would want to say goodbye to your friend.”

“Yes, you’re right, I want to.”

“Castiel, I am aware of your situation with the memory loss. For a certain price, we would be willing to solve your problem. We will change the future, but that won’t mean Dean will not be in further danger anymore. You could protect him better with a fully functional mind.”

“I don’t think Dean will need much protecting as he is capable of taking care of himself – I learned that the hard way. But your offer is much appreciated. Name your price.”

“Your obedience. Heaven might require your service later on. This could be the chance to redeem yourself, Castiel.”

“I… What about the antichrist?”

“Oh. He’ll die, just like what should have happened, when you hunted him. We do not have enough juice to keep him alive anyways.”

“What if something changed? What if I killed Metatron? Will you keep him alive then?”

“Even the smallest changes need a huge amount of power. We might not be able to be able to make sure Metatron stays dead, but it might keep the antichrist alive.”

“Then I’ll do it.” Castiel nods grimly.

“Good. You just need to sign this contract saying you will obey us. Hurry up, or there will be no time for you to save the antichrist.”

Castiel realises he is probably being set up. He doesn’t care; as long as he can save Dean… Jesse… He’ll serve Heaven again, if only so Dean can have the friend he deserves and not some brain damaged version of him. Castiel smiles and signs.


	28. Chapter 28

Dean shoots him a worried look as soon as he finds his way back in the ring of fire. Metatron doesn’t seem to have noticed his absence, but Dean… Of course Dean has. Cas glares at him, hoping it will get his non-verbal message of ‘shut up’ across loud and clear. Dean dips his chin and Cas relaxes the tiniest bit.

Dean arches his eyebrow: _Do you have a plan_ now _?_ Cas nods. Dean looks away and hides a grin.

 

Okay, so he does not _exactly_ have a plan, but he has a goal now and that’s more than what he started with. Time to put one of the dearly learned lessons – one of the first the Winchesters taught him – to good use: stalling.

“Metatron. Whatever plan you are working on, it won’t work.”

“Au contraire, it is already put in action and working quite well, if I do say myself.”

“Let Dean go now! The only thing that this is going to end in is bloodshed and tears and pain. It doesn’t have to be that way.”

“As far as I know, the little plans you concocted yourself have only caused the Winchesters pain and grief. If you cooperate like you have been, everything will be alright and Dean will walk away unharmed. Just a few stitches more… And I am done.” Metatron finishes with a grunt and lets go of Dean, who can’t bare his own weight anymore. Dean faceplants on the ground, eyes rolling in their sockets. Cas feels panic fluttering at the base of his throat, cutting the not-needed airflow off. He is not used to feeling so utterly useless… so utterly _human_.

“What do you want?” It doesn’t come out as a question.

“You. Or more accurately: your body. You see, I have this little spell that will benefit all the angels, including you. There’s only one ingredient missing: the body of a fallen angel, whose grace has been restored. I don’t want to cause more havoc, or kill more than I necessarily have to. You, my dearest Castiel, have a habit of being stubborn and doing whatever you think is best, instead of doing what is best. I thought it wisest if I used something a little more persuasive than just my voice of reason.

“I am not going to say however that rebelling against heaven was a bad thing. No, free will was the best thing that could happen to the angels and that’s why I will give you a choice. I can either burn down your vessel with your grace still within it, or you can save Dean’s life by taking him as a vessel. Either ways, Jimmy Novak’s body will burn; you will not be able to change that.

“Don’t think it’s an empty either, I will kill you, Castiel, if necessary. You are not the only angel whose grace has been restored, and though it will be difficult to find those other angels – to say the very least – I have no doubt they will be easier to convince.

“Whatever you choose; it’s up to you. Make a wise decision.”

 

“You’re not making any sense; your plan doesn’t make any sense. You’ve taken me to this place, going through the troubles of sowing wings to Dean’s back, telling me to take him as a vessel, without ever explaining why. You pretend you give me a choice, while we both know your speech about free will is only that: words.”

“But that’s just the thing isn’t it? You can choose inevitable death for the both of you, or maybe just to trust me, even if it’s only for a little while.”

“You’ve set this whole thing up, because you knew I was going to save my friend. There is only one problem left: I can’t exactly get to him, if I’m trapped in a circle of holy fire.”

“It was never a real circle of holy fire; just some oil, set ablaze,” Metatron shrugs. Castiel wonders if Naomi knows this, or if this means she’s actually working with Metatron now.

It doesn’t matter anymore; it’s too late to change his mind.

“Is it?” Castiel cocks his head to the side. The weight of his sword is reassuring and cool in his hand. He is counting the steps in his head; how many it will take to reach Metatron. He envisions the practiced moves that will take the angels life; it will have to be quick and precise, but he’ll want a little time with Dean, so no vital organs then.

And then what? He can’t exactly let the angel lie around bleeding to death while he and Dean have a little heart-to-heart. That’d be way too risky, he might grab a knife and – oh wait, that could actually work. He fights to keep a grin off his face.

“I don’t trust you to not be lying, right now. I think I could use a little, uh… demonstration,” he can feel Dean’s words practically rolling of his tongue.

Metatron nears the circle of fire slowly and on his guard. Cas’s stance is passive and relaxed, his hands are open; the most important thing is that his enemy trusts him not to do something.

When he is close enough, Castiel pulls his sword out of his sleeve and quickly pierces the fleshy part of Metatron’s shoulder, where he’ll bleed out fast enough if he doesn’t get medical care, but won’t die instantly.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This has taken me forever to write, but I think we've got about one chapter left, maybe more, probably not. Last chapter will most likely be a Romeo-Juliet-like scene in which everybody dies, but since it's supernatural, everyone dies temporarily.
> 
> I'll try to update the next chapter a little sooner than this one, but I am done with this story, I am not as invested anymore as when I started it. I am not planning on abandoning it, don't worry, the updates just won't be as quick as when I started this fic. 
> 
> Thank you so much for reading this, really it means a lot :)


	29. Chapter 29

“Cas! What are you doing? Finish him off!”  
“Not yet, Dean.”  
“Why not?” Then Dean gets a good look at his face, “No. No, abso-fucking-lutely not. I don’t know what you’re planning, but you’ve got this look in your eyes. No.”  
“Dean.”  
“No!”  
“Dean, I can fix this! I can heal myself and maybe heal us, too, in the process. I want a second chance, with you. Take it, Dean, while the offer is still on the table.”  
“At what cost, Cas? After all this time, haven’t we learned one thing? Anything I want and am not allowed to have usually comes at a much too high price.”  
“You’re dying. We don’t have much time.”  
“I’ve done that already a few times, remember? Never seemed to have a lasting effect.”  
“Don’t even joke about that. This time you might not come back.”  
“Okay, let’s say I go along with this plan of yours, what’s it gonna take, huh?”  
“You’ll have to kill me.”  
“What the fuck. How is this any better than just letting me die in peace?”  
“No, listen. You’ll have to kill me at the exact same time as you’ll kill Metatron. Then the timeline will be rewritten.”  
“And then what? What will happen to your Lucifer thing?”  
“Don’t worry about it, Dean. It won’t matter anymore. Please. Just… Please, do this for me.”  
Dean sighs, rubs his face and looks away, blinking heavily.  
“I don’t know, Cas.”  
“Please,” Cas begs and offers him the angel sword. Dean takes it, sullenly, reminding him of every time he’s seen Sam taking a weapon of Dean with tears in his eyes.   
“You sure?”  
“Yes.” Cas says determined.  
“I love you, you know. Just thought you should know.”  
“I do.” Cas smiles, “And I love you, too, Dean.” In two steps he reaches Metatron, who had been sneakingly trying to creep away. He hauls him up and holds him in front of him.   
“Make it quick, okay?” Cas says and he closes his eyes.   
Maybe Naomi is lying. Maybe this all has just been an elaborate set up and Metatron knows what he has been up to all along. Maybe they, whoever they are, do need him to kill himself or something. He doesn’t know. He just has to trust Naomi and hope she’s telling the truth.  
“Cas.” It’s soft and broken. Cas opens his eyes and nods at Dean. Dean nods back. Just trying to give each other the bit of comfort in this horrible task.  
Dean grips the angel blade better and stabs Metatron through the heart, who is dangling slightly above the floor due to their height difference. The last thing Cas feels is his own blade piercing his chest.


End file.
